Palladium Equity Partners has sold Raben Tire Company, an independent tire dealer and automotive services provider, to The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Palladium acquired Raben Tire in December 2014 in partnership with the founding Raben family.
Raben Tires supplies a range of tires – including passenger, motorcycle, and truck tires – to retail, commercial, and wholesale customers. The company was founded in 1952 by Butch Raben and has grown from a single location to more than 30 commercial and consumer tire and service locations and retread production plants in Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Raben Tire, with annual revenues estimated at more than $150 million, is headquartered in Evansville, Indiana.
“As Raben joins the Goodyear family of industry-leading products and services, we thank Palladium for their strong partnership with our team over the past five years,” said Scott Cisney, CEO of Raben. “Together with Palladium, we executed a range of initiatives, including increasing the number of services offered, opening new locations, and pursuing strategic acquisitions.”
“We knew when we invested in the company in 2014 that Raben had established a strong brand reputation in the Midwest by offering excellent service to its loyal customer following and strong relationships with its suppliers,” said Chris Allen, a managing director of Palladium. “It was important to Palladium to work closely with Scott Cisney and his team to execute a focused strategy that recognized the achievements of this family-founded company while expanding and strengthening the business through organic and M&A initiatives.”
New York City-based Palladium invests from $50 million to $150 million of equity in companies that have $10 million to $75 million of EBITDA. Sectors of interest include consumer, services, industrials and healthcare, and Palladium specializes investing in companies that operate in the US Hispanic market. In July 2019, Palladium held a final close of Palladium Equity Partners V LP with commitments of $1.56 billion. The firm’s earlier fund, Palladium Equity Partners IV LP, closed on $1.14 billion in 2014. Since its founding in 1997, Palladium has invested over $2 billion of capital in more than 33 platform investments and completed over 135 add-on acquisitions.
“The addition of Raben further expands our network and strengthens Goodyear’s ability to serve fleets,” said Dave Beasley, vice president, Goodyear North America Commercial. “Goodyear is already one of the world’s largest operators of commercial truck service and retreading centers and has nearly 800 company-owned commercial and retail tire and auto service centers across the US and Canada.”
Goodyear is one of the world’s largest tire companies. The Akron, Ohio-headquartered company employs about 64,000 people and manufactures its products in 47 facilities in 21 countries around the world.
“Palladium played a key role in Raben’s growth as one of the largest tire and service companies in the Midwest, helping to professionalize a business founded at a single location in 1952 by Butch Raben,” said Dean Holland, the chairman of Raben.
BB&T Capital Markets was the financial advisor to Raben on this transaction.
© 2019 Private Equity Professional | December 18, 2019