Carousel Capital announced today that it has partnered with management to recapitalize Pye Barker Fire & Safety (“Pye Barker” or the “Company”), the leading provider of route-based fire protection services in the Southeast. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Pye Barker operates from 17 branches strategically located in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee providing best in class service to its diverse customer base.
Founded in 1946, Pye Barker route-based services include monitoring, inspection, maintenance and repair of fire detection and suppression products. The Company also provides commercial cleaning services to restaurants and food service companies. Pye Barker’s highly trained technicians deliver services on a recurring, planned or responsive basis to tens of thousands of sites per year for a large customer base. Pye Barker serves customers across its strategic Southeastern footprint, allowing the Company to cover approximately 500,000 square miles of service territory. Given its long history of quality service in the Southeast, customers within the commercial, industrial, restaurant, healthcare and multi-family industries rely on Pye Barker for their most important fire protection services to ensure safety, regulatory compliance and to mitigate potential liability.
“We are excited to partner with the management team of Pye Barker Fire & Safety to assist them in continuing to build one of the highest quality and fastest growing fire protection services businesses in the country,” said Charles Grigg, a Managing Partner of Carousel Capital. “Bart Proctor and his management team have an impressive track record of building businesses through strategic acquisitions. We believe Pye Barker has a unique opportunity to achieve significant growth via add-on acquisitions in its highly fragmented market and are excited to participate in the execution of this strategy.”
“Pye Barker has been built around the tenets of excellent customer service and best-in-class branch level operations. Carousel shares this view wholeheartedly and its experience developed through many successful investments in both route-based services and buy and build strategies gave us great confidence in working with them on this opportunity,” said Bart Proctor, Chief Executive Officer of Pye Barker. Roger Lumsden, Co-Founder, added “Carousel’s investment and support will help us achieve our goals of growing our business dramatically through continued acquisitions within the region. We are thrilled to have a strong capital base and institutional support to achieve our strategic plan.”
Carousel Capital funded the transaction with equity from its fourth investment fund, Carousel Capital Partners IV, L.P.
Carousel Capital is a private investment firm that invests in companies located in the Southeastern United States. Carousel’s investor base includes institutional investors and an elite group of more than 100 current and former CEOs with significant operating experience. Since its inception, Carousel has invested in 35 companies primarily in three targeted growth sectors: business services; consumer services; and healthcare services.
