Century Fire Protection LLC (“Century” or the “Company”) repairs, services, inspects, designs, fabricates and installs fire suppression systems for commercial, industrial, institutional and multi-family residential customers throughout the Southeast, from offices in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Century was owned by Brighton Partners, LLC (“Brighton”), an Atlanta-based private equity fund, and several members of the management team. When Brighton decided to exit its investment in Century, the private equity fund retained the founders of SLATE as its exclusive advisor.
On behalf of Brighton and the management team, SLATE’s founders conducted a broad sales process focused on both strategic and financial acquirers. The founders of SLATE obtained numerous offers for the Company and ultimately negotiated a successful sale of Century to another private equity fund, New York City-based Wafra Partners LLC (“Wafra”). Wafra was attracted to Century due to its market dominance in the Southeast and its exceptional management team, which maintained a meaningful ownership position in the Company post-closing.
This experience was extremely valuable in the Century transaction. SLATE’s founders were able to move very rapidly through the due diligence and preparatory period of the process and get Century into the market much more quickly than any other investment bank would have been able to. Furthermore, SLATE founders’ existing knowledge of the fire & life safety services industry allowed them to position Century in the most effective manner with potential acquirers. Finally, their prior dealings with the strategic and financial acquirers most interested in the fire & life safety services industry gave the founders of SLATE an advantage in running the sales process that proved invaluable to Brighton and the management team.
