Century Fire Protection, LLC
Case Study
Case Study
Initial Business Overview
Provider of fire & life safety systems and services including: fire sprinkler, fire suppression, fire alarm, specialty hazard & kitchen hood systems
Footprint | 11 offices across 7 southeastern and southwestern states | ||
End‑markets | Office, warehouse / distribution, multi-family, education, retail, commercial, healthcare, government & lodging | ||
Services | End-to-end lifecycle management solutions including design, fabrication, installation, inspection, maintenance, repair and monitoring |
Investment Thesis
- Build out existing branch locations
- Drive highly-valued repair, service and inspection (“RSI”) platform
- Increase national account presence
- Growth potential via service and geographic expansion
- Increasing regulatory (local, state and federal) growth drivers
Why Granite Bridge Partners?
- Founder seeking financial partner to accelerate growth organically and through acquisitions while minimizing the use of debt
Compelling Situation
- Regional leader of fire & life safety solutions in highly attractive southeastern US
- Large and highly fragmented industry with regulatory growth drivers
- One-stop solution with diverse customer base and sustainable margins
- Historical backlog with good visibility to future revenue streams
- In-house fabrication capabilities
- Energetic and experienced management team
Value Creation
Throughout the investment period, the investment team worked with management to drive organic and acquisition-led growth during volatile construction cycles. During this time, Century Fire:
- Expanded the highly-valued recurring revenue portion of the business from 24% to approximately 50% while lowering dependence on cyclical installation market
- Grew EBITDA from $4.1 million to $10.1 million; a CAGR of 10.5%
- Increased geographic footprint into southeastern and expanded into southwestern US market
- Added specialty hazard capabilities; developed a national accounts program for RSI division
- Completed three accretive acquisitions at low multiples and opened de novo locations
- Maintained key employees during Great Recession in order to quickly take advantage of market improvement
Result
Century Fire was sold to an internationally-headquartered public company in April 2016
Company & Transaction Highlights
Sector
Fire & Life Safety
Headquarters
Duluth, GA
Add-on Companies
Augusta Fire Protection, Inc.
C&N Fire Systems, Inc.
Fire Sprinkler LLC
C&N Fire Systems, Inc.
Fire Sprinkler LLC
Transaction Type
Control & Recapitalization
Acquisition Date
January 2007
Exit Date
April 2016
Disclaimer: The track record information relates to portfolios managed by the principals of Granite Bridge Partners LLC (“Granite Bridge”), who were primarily responsible for account performance results, while they were employed by Wafra, Inc. (“Wafra”). Granite Bridge intends to pursue substantially the same or similar strategy that was pursued while the principals were employed by Wafra. As an internal group at Wafra, the track record is related to proprietary portfolios, which maintained an expense structure materially different than the expenses to be charged by Granite Bridge. Any portfolio investments contained herein were selected based on objective non-performance-based criteria and are not meant to be indicative or reflective of the portfolio of any fund or account managed by Granite Bridge. Rather, such case studies are meant to exemplify Granite Bridge’s analysis and execution of its investment strategy. Obviously, not all investments are successful and profitable. As such, the examples contained herein should not be viewed as representative of all investments made by Granite Bridge, but simply as examples of the types of successful investing Granite Bridge strives for. There is no guarantee that any fund managed by Granite Bridge will find similar opportunities or that any similar investments will be included in any such fund’s portfolio.