News
February 28, 2019
ORIX Adds Tri-State Utilities
Hoffman Southwest, a portfolio company of ORIX Capital Partners, has acquired Tri-State Utilities Company. ORIX acquired Hoffman Southwest from Sterling Partners in February 2017.
Tri-State is a regional provider of trenchless repair, rehabilitation, inspection, and other maintenance services to the municipal utility market and has long-term sewer and stormwater contracts with many of its utility customers. The company’s services include pipe cleaning, CCTV inspection, smoke and dye testing, grouting, HDPE slip-lining, and trenchless pipe lining. Tri-State has a fleet of equipment including vacuum trucks, inspection rigs, boiler trucks, winches, backhoes, and dump trucks.
Tri-State was founded in 1990 by Steve McSweeney and ownership was passed to his sons, Andy McSweeney and Joe McSweeney, in 2007. Tri-State is headquartered in Chesapeake, VA (www.tristateutilities.com).
Hoffman Southwest (HSW) provides underground pipe inspection, trenchless pipe repair, excavation and cleaning services for municipal and utility customers under the Pro-Pipe brand; and plumbing, drain cleaning, trenchless pipe repair and water restoration services for commercial and residential customers as the largest franchisee of the Roto-Rooter brand. HSW operates 12 Roto-Rooter branches in five states: California, Arizona, Utah, Oregon and Texas. The company was founded in 1947 as a franchisee of Roto-Rooter and in 1992 the company established Pro-Pipe which now operates eight west coast branch locations. HSW is headquartered in Mission Viejo, CA (www.hswcorp.com) (www.pro-pipe.com).
ORIX Capital Partners invests from $75 million to $200 million of equity per transaction in North America based middle-market companies that are active in the business services, infrastructure services and industrials sectors. New York-based ORIX Capital Partners is a business unit of ORIX USA, a Dallas-based financial services firm. Its parent company, ORIX Corporation, is a Tokyo-based, publicly owned financial services company with operations in 38 countries and regions worldwide (www.orixcapitalpartners.com).
Matrix Capital Markets Group (www.matrixcmg.com) was the financial advisor to Tri-State. The transaction was led by David Shoulders, managing director and head of Matrix’s consumer & industrial products group, and William O’Flaherty, vice president. “In the face of what could have been an exhausting and emotional process for Joe and me, the Matrix team was an unwavering source of support, providing professional and thoughtful guidance throughout the engagement,” said Andy McSweeney. “We can’t imagine getting this transaction done without their assistance, and we feel fortunate that we selected Matrix as our advisor.”