Pritzker Private Capital looks to push growth for new acquisition Valicor

Pritzker Private Capital plans to get right to work after acquiring Valicor, an Ohio-based provider of non-hazardous wastewater treatment services, in a deal announced Wednesday, with plans to grow the business through acquisitions.

“Right out of the chute, I think we’ll have some add-on acquisitions that we’ll be looking at,” said Pritzker partner Ryan Roberts. “We think there are a number of smaller businesses in the space that would benefit from being part of a more scaled operation to help us expand geographically as well. So we think expanding footprint is going to be important for the company.”

Roberts told Buyouts the decision to buy Valicor came from its presence within a sector, industrial services, which PPC is familiar with, as well as an established relationship with its current CEO, James Devlin.

“We’ve been familiar with both [Valicor and Devlin] for some time and have been impressed with what they’ve been doing trying to build that business into more of a national platform,” he said.

Valicor is based in Ohio but has locations throughout the eastern part of the United States from Texas to Maryland. Before the sale to Pritzker, Valicor was already expanding. Last December, it acquired Spirit Services, operator of a wastewater facility in Williamsport, Maryland. A press release said Valicor had expanded its number of wastewater treatment plants from five to 11 in 15 months.

“There’s multiple sectors of growth with [Valicor],” Roberts said. “There’s organic opportunity both from a geographic standpoint, but also a service standpoint, as well as a pretty interesting opportunity to continue to do add-on acquisitions.”

Pritzker Private Capital is part of Pritzker Group, a family office run by Tony Pritzker of Chicago’s Pritzker family, which made its name as owners of the Hyatt hotel chain. PPC acquires North America-based middle market companies and focuses on the manufactured products, services and healthcare sectors.

Roberts told Buyouts the interest in the industrial services sector came from PPC’s involvement with manufactured goods, which gave the firm a working knowledge of the industrial sector.

“We have quite a bit of insight into what’s going on in terms of the services that they’re outsourcing, what the needs are, what the trends are,” he said. “We also see from a macro standpoint the trend toward greater industrial activity coming back to the U.S. and looking to play on that as well.”

Roberts declined to discuss the terms of the acquisition, which were not disclosed at the time of the sale.