Audax to sell Trimark USA to Warburg Pincus

It is not clear how much Warburg Pincus is paying. The investment, however, is coming from the firm’s eleventh private fund, which closed on $11.2 billion in 2013, sister website peHUB reported.

South Attleboro, Massachusetts-based TriMark provides equipment, supplies and design services for the food service industry. Audax invested in the company in 2006, according to Jerry Hyman, the company’s president and CEO.

Hyman refused to confirm the sale to Warburg Pincus. He also would not disclose how much Audax invested in the company.

Warburg Pincus’s acquisition of TriMark represents the company’s most recent acquisition by a private equity firm. Bradford Equities Management, a White Plains, New York, buyout shop, sold TriMark to Audax in 2006, according to a statement from that time.

“We’ve been involved with private equity firms for over 15 years,” Hyman told peHUB.

Audax used its second buyout fund to buy TriMark, the FTC filing said. Audax Private Equity Fund II closed at $741 million in 2005, alternative assets data provider Bison said. Fund II is producing a 14 percent IRR, Bison said, and a 1.72x multiple. Executives at Audax declined comment.

New York-based Warburg Pincus, which invests in multiple stages of a company’s life cycle, invests in sectors including financial services, healthcare, energy and consumer.

Foodservice Equipment & Supplies, a trade publication, first reported news of the Trimark sale.

Luisa Beltran is a senior writer for peHUB.