Investment Furthers Altamont’s Multi-Unit Consumer Sector Leadership
Palo Alto, CA – Altamont Capital Partners (“Altamont”) today announced the acquisition of Service Minds, a leading provider of electrical, plumbing and HVAC services based in Sarasota, Florida. Owned and operated by David Connolly since 2014, Service Minds has been a leading franchisee in the Mister Sparky system since its inception and today also operates in the One Hour Heating & AC and Benjamin Franklin Plumbing systems, servicing the Southeastern United States across all three trades.
The Service Minds transaction represents Altamont’s most recent multi-unit franchisee investment, following its successful investments in Tacala and Excel Fitness, leading franchisees in the Taco Bell and Planet Fitness systems, respectively. Similar to the approach with those investments, Altamont plans to invest heavily in the Service Minds team and infrastructure to drive growth and further build upon the company’s reputation for operational excellence.
“Service Minds holds great potential for growth thanks to a strong business model that provides critical services, delivers industry leading customer service, has developed best-in-class training and apprenticeship programs, and offers exciting career development opportunities for its team members,” said Kevin Mason, Managing Director of Altamont. “David built an impressive playbook and strong team that allow us to now scale the business to additional branches and service offerings. We could not be more excited to have an opportunity to partner with this team and leverage our experience driving growth through infrastructure investment, team member recruitment and retention, organic sales drivers, and mergers and acquisitions within franchise systems.”
At the time of acquisition, Service Minds was the largest franchisee of the Mister Sparky brand, a leading provider of residential electrical services. In conjunction with the investment by Altamont, Service Minds acquired multiple franchisees operating under the One Hour Heating & AC and Benjamin Franklin Plumbing brands. Along with Mister Sparky, both brands operate under the Authority Brands portfolio of home services businesses. The transaction creates one of the largest providers of residential services across the electrical, heating and cooling, and plumbing trades in the Southeastern United States. Service Minds currently operates over 20 locations across Florida and Alabama.
Going forward, David Connolly will remain a shareholder and serve as Executive Chairman of the board of directors. Service Minds has also already added a number of seasoned senior leaders to the business to support business scaling, including CEO Brannan Lahoda, who formerly served as Senior Vice President of Operations at Driven Brands, and CFO Magda Farren, who served as CFO at W.S. Badcock Corporation and Colorado Boxed Beef Company, a prior Altamont Capital portfolio company. David Cox joined the company as Chief Growth Officer, having previously been CEO of About Time Management, a One Hour Heating & AC and Benjamin Franklin Plumbing franchisee acquired by Service Minds.
“The leaders we’ve brought in, along with continued guidance from David Connolly, will make a strong company even stronger,” Randall Eason, Managing Director of Altamont said. “Service Minds has always provided best-in-class training, mentorship, company culture, and incentives for its talented team members and we endeavor to continue that tradition.”
“I’m pleased to be working with such a talented team as we work to make Service Minds the employer of choice for industry professionals across the electric, HVAC, and plumbing trades,” Lahoda added. “Going forward, we’re focused first and foremost on delivering the absolute best customer service and employee experience and we plan to bring our services to more branches, more states across the southeast, and more residential service lines.”
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Boxwood Partners acted as exclusive financial advisor, and Ropes & Gray and Morrison & Foerster served as legal counsels, to Altamont on the transaction. Truist Securities acted as exclusive financial advisor, and Shumaker, Loop and Kendrick, LLP served as legal counsel, to Service Minds. Financing for the transaction was provided by Varagon Capital Partners, L.P., Stellus Capital Management, LLC, and Principal Alternative Credit.
About Service Minds
Service Minds is headquartered in Sarasota, Florida, where it was founded in 2007 as a single Mister Sparky location. The company grew from one Mister Sparky branch in 2014 to 13 branches by April 2022 before acquiring multiple franchisees in the One Hour Heating & AC and Benjamin Franklin Plumbing systems. Service Minds currently operates over 20 locations across Florida and Alabama, currently servicing brands in the Authority Brands system, a leading home service franchisor.
About Altamont Capital Partners
Altamont Capital Partners is a private investment firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area with more than $4.5 billion of assets under management. Altamont is focused on investing in middle market businesses where it can partner with leading management teams to help its portfolio companies reach their full potential. The firm’s principals have significant experience building business success stories across a range of industries, including healthcare, business services, financial services, consumer/retail, and industrials.