Evercore Capital Partners — the private equity investing arm of Evercore Partners, a boutique financial advisory and investment firm — has announced that it has acquired a majority ownership interest in Mr. Bult’s Inc. MBI, headquartered outside of Chicago, is the largest U.S. provider of solid waste transportation services in the outsourced, longhaul market.
MBI’s founder, James Bult, has retained a minority stake in the company and will remain its chief executive officer. Tony Schmidt, MBI’s general manager who has been with the company for more than 10 years, also will continue in his current position. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
“We are attracted to MBI because of its leading position in a growing and fragmented sector characterized by a number of promising trends,” says Neeraj Mital, senior managing director of Evercore. “Jim and Tony have done an excellent job of building MBI into a profitable, customer-driven company that is poised for continued growth.”
According to Mital, ECP believes MBI should benefit from a number of favorable trends in its sector. These include the steady growth in solid waste generation; the shift in disposal to fewer, larger landfills in more remote, rural areas; the need to transport solid waste over increasingly greater distances; the expectation that trucking will remain the preferred method of longhaul transportation; and the growing trend by waste companies and municipalities to outsource their longhaul equipment and transportation services needs to providers such as MBI.
“We welcome ECP to the MBI family, and we’re looking forward to working with them to build on the strong momentum we have generated and to take MBI to the next level,” Bult says. “We pride ourselves on our high-quality customer service, driver dependability and service efficiency, and competitive pricing. These are the pillars of our business, and ECP’s added capital will help us drive MBI forward.”
