Background

Bishop Lifting is a market-leading, value-added distributor of lifting solutions, including wire rope, slings, rigging, and related safety-critical products. Headquartered in Houston, Bishop prides itself on serving thousands of customers across the US with speed, high quality, and attentive service. The safety-critical nature of Bishop’s product suite, coupled with Bishop’s expertise and service quality, have resulted in strong growth since ACP’s investment in February 2022.

Vision

• Invest in a Solid Foundation. We identified early on that Bishop possessed the robust set of fundamentals that ACP looks for in distribution companies, though they were partially masked given the required carveout of the company from a larger organization. Starting with this strong foundation, we have made investments throughout the organization – both in people and facilities – to support and accelerate above-market organic growth.
• Create the First National Provider of Lifting Solutions. With an existing network across the Southern and Western US, Bishop provided a strong base from which to create the first truly national lifting solutions provider. Since ACP’s investment, Bishop has filled out its geographies, adding partners in the Southeast, Northeast and Pacific Northwest. Together, the Bishop team and ACP have accelerated the creation of a platform with national scale yet local presence by implementing a disciplined integration program and creating a unified “1Bishop” brand.
• Pursue Inorganic Growth in a Fragmented Market. ACP has extensive experience partnering with management teams to execute against highly acquisitive business-building strategies, a key pillar of the Bishop Lifting thesis. Working in conjunction with the Bishop team, ACP developed a repeatable M&A playbook to evaluate, execute and integrate acquisitions, ensuring business continuity and the preservation of each acquisition’s unique culture, all while realizing the benefits of these synergistic combinations.

Results

In the past two years, Bishop has more than doubled its revenue, completing and integrating 5 acquisitions while growing double digits on an organic basis. Bishop has also added over 400 employees since close and maintained a stellar safety record, meaningfully outperforming the industry average.

The partnership with ACP has enabled Bishop to expand its national footprint to roughly 45 locations across 14 states in the US, offer new products and capabilities, and explore new end markets. Under ACP’s ownership, Bishop has also undergone a rebranding that has helped to consolidate its brands and better serve its customers across its growing national footprint. Additionally, ACP recruited seasoned leaders with deep functional and industry knowledge to further strengthen the existing Bishop management team.

Accomplishing the above has required a dedicated effort from every employee at Bishop. As such, ACP worked with the Bishop team to establish a broad-based equity program through Ownership Works, a nonprofit with a mission to increase prosperity through shared ownership at work. Through this program, ACP was able to give ownership to all employees in the organization and improve incentive alignment. In addition, Bishop has given back to its local communities with over $10,000 in grants awarded to local organizations in partnership with the ACP Foundation.

Learn more about Bishop and our partnership with this video.