This initial acquisition, lead by Womble partner John F. “Sandy” Smith, involved the purchase of Richmond, Ky.-based Specialized Technical Services Inc.
“At core, they're meter readers, and they have a staff of meter readers that they subcontract to gas companies,” Smith said. “Now they also can offer technology-enhanced meter readings.”
That, he explained, means that a utility truck can drive past a meter and read it via a radio signal, without the driver needing to stop or get out. Or, he said, some meters are equipped to send readings directly back to the company.
“Enhanced technology for the service industry is how an investment banker would describe it,” Smith said.
He said that Specialized Technology Services, or STS, employs several thousand permanent and contract workers, and its business touches on a number of legal areas that required eight specialized lawyers for discrete tasks to get the deal done.
“From a lawyer's point of view, it had a lot of different issues,” Smith said, listing labor and employment, litigation, regulatory and federal and state tax matters that had to be considered in order to get the deal done.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Smith said only that STS's revenue, pegged at $18.8 million in 2006 in an Inc. magazine ranking of the nation's fastest-growing private companies, was now higher. He pointed out that Navigation focuses on companies with revenue in the $20 million to $100 million range.
This is the third transaction Smith has done for Navigation in the past three or four months, including helping the private equity firm acquire an audio-visual sales and design company with senior and mezzanine loan facilities from Regions Bank, and follow-on financing through Peachtree Equity Partners.