New Canaan, CT – April 6, 2017 – RFE Investment Partners (“RFE”) announced that it has completed the sale of one of its portfolio companies - Wind River Environmental (“Wind River” or “the Company”) to Gryphon Investors (“Gryphon”). Wind River is the leading provider of inspection, service, installation, repair, and maintenance of non-hazardous liquid environmental waste solutions in the United States.
Wind River was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Since acquiring the Company in July 2014, RFE worked closely with the management team to complete 15 strategic add-on acquisitions in order to increase the Company’s leadership position in its current markets and expand the geographic markets served. Consistent with RFE’s core value creation initiatives and to support Wind River’s rapid growth, multiple senior leadership searches were also completed over this time period to build out the management team. These efforts resulted in a tripling of EBITDA during RFE’s ownership period.
RFE Managing Director, Jim Parsons, noted, “We are very pleased with the significant growth of Wind River during RFE’s ownership. The Company has built a clear leadership position in the U.S. non-hazardous liquid waste management industry. Wind River is led by a terrific management team and is well positioned to continue its rapid growth.”
Wind River CEO, John O’Connell, said, “Over the last several years, RFE has been a value added partner in our successful growth efforts. We found RFE to be true partners with our management team and their approach has been very collaborative and effective.”
During the transaction, William Blair & Company acted as the financial advisor to Wind River and Finn Dixon & Herling served as legal counsel to the Company.
About Wind River
Wind River Environmental (www.wrenvironmental.com) and its affiliated companies inspect, service, repair and install a broad array of non-hazardous liquid waste systems, including septic tanks, grease traps, pumping and industrial waste systems. The Company offers a full array of services to residential, commercial and municipal systems from Maine to Florida. In 2016, the Company serviced 25,000 commercial and 52,000 residential sites. Operating in the Northeast, Tri-state, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast regions, Wind River has the largest fleet in the industry and all 500+ of Wind River’s team members are graduates of Wind River University, including 350+ technicians.
DECADES OF RECOGNIZING GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES
RFE is a seasoned team of business owners who partner with entrepreneurial management teams seeking to grow their businesses in the lower middle market. RFE has over three decades of recognizing growth opportunities, and our approach is simple: find good companies and help them reach their true potential.
RFE PURSUES GROWTH STRATEGIES IN NORTH AMERICAN SMALL MARKET COMPANIES.
We make control investments in businesses with initial enterprise values of $20 million to $150 million. The RFE team then works collaboratively with management to identify actionable channels of growth, both organically and through add-on acquisitions. Management will also have access to a network of operations and human capital resources that are available to support the team throughout the investment lifecycle.
THE FOUNDATION OF OUR SUCCESS IS THE QUALITY OF OUR TEAM AND THE ENDURING RELATIONSHIPS WE FORM.
RFE's Managing Directors have worked together an average of 19 years and average 24 years of private equity experience.
RFE Investment Partners
36 Grove St
New Canaan, CT, 06840
(203) 966-2800
www.rfeip.com