If there’s one thing that most Americans can agree on these days, it’s their love of motor vehicles. From Ford 4x4s to Tesla Roadsters, car ownership among Americans has steadily increased for the past 30 years. So, it should come as no surprise that while Americans were writing an ungodly amount of songs about trucks, private equity has been finding ways to cash in on that love.
For example, on Thursday there were two PE deals just involving car wheels. One was made by Clearlake Capital portfolio company Wheel Pros, a designer, marketer and distributor of branded aftermarket wheels, to acquire and merge with MHT Luxury Wheels. The new company, which will make 22 different brands of custom tires in approximately 1,400 different styles, will have an enterprise value exceeding $1 billion and rake in more than $130 million in EBITDA yearly, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The second was a deal was made by tiremaker Michelin for Masternaut, a SaaS telematics platform owned by Summit Partners and FleetCor. While both companies are based in France, Michelin is the second-largest tire wholesaler in the US and Mexico and conducts a significant amount of business in both countries. The tiremaker paid 8x EBITDA for Masternaut, which Summit and FleetCor originally bought from Francisco Partners for $455 million in 2014.
From car washes to car parts to car tech, we’ve compiled a list of the 10 most active PE investors in the US automotive industry since the start of 2009 using data from the PitchBook Platform, with their deal counts in parentheses.
1. Penfund (25)
2. Leonard Green & Partners (20)
3. Hellman & Friedman (18)
4. Kinderhook Industries (17)
5. OMERS (15)
6. The Carlyle Group (14)
T-7. Ridgemont Equity Partners (13)
T-7 Audax Group (13)
T-9. CenterOak Partners (12)
T-9. ONCAP
Related read: KKR to pay $7.1B to Chyrsler in autoparts add-on
Featured image via gerenme / iStock / Getty Images Plus
