News / Acquisitions

Cerberus Announces it has Completed the Acquisition of KBS from GI Partners

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO and NEW YORK – November 13, 2019 – GI Partners, a leading private investment firm, today announced that it has completed the sale of Kellermeyer Bergensons Services, LLC (“KBS” or the “Company”) to an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management, L. P. (“Cerberus”).

Headquartered in Oceanside, California, KBS is a leading provider of technology-enabled, integrated facility management services to customers across North America. With its differentiated technology and comprehensive suite of facility services, the Company delivers high-quality and cost-effective solutions to customers in the industrial, commercial, logistics, retail, and grocery sectors.

GI Partners acquired KBS in 2014 and, during the last five years, the Company has experienced significant growth through both organic and M&A initiatives. Organically, the Company drove record new wins and maintained industry leading customer retention while diversifying its customer base into high growth end markets. Bolstering KBS’ best-in-class delivery model, the Company developed and launched KBSForce, a proprietary and purpose-built labor management and business intelligence tool, to drive industry-leading operational efficiencies and technology enablement. Additionally, GI Partners supported the establishment of KBS’ successful M&A platform, as the company completed seven strategic acquisitions, accelerating growth into highly attractive end markets while generating meaningful operational synergies.

“We are very pleased with the outcome of our investment in KBS and grateful for the strong partnership with the management team,” said Hoon Cho, Managing Director at GI Partners. “It has been a pleasure partnering with Mark and the team to build an industry-leading facilities management platform. We look forward to following KBS’ continued success during the Company’s next stage of growth and its partnership with Cerberus.”

Mark Minasian, Chief Executive Officer of KBS, commented, “I am very proud of the outstanding performance our team delivered, and we are grateful to GI Partners and Hoon in particular for his unwavering support and strategic engagement during our partnership. We have undergone a dramatic transformation over the past five years, driving large share gains in our traditional end markets while expanding rapidly into new ones. Today’s KBS is a scaled, structurally advantaged, technology enabled North American service platform uniquely positioned to deliver our current and future customers world class service solutions for years to come. As we enter the next chapter of our evolution, we are thrilled to be partnering with Cerberus and are confident that its deep expertise and operational and technological resources will further accelerate the pace and scale of organic and inorganic value creation.”

Robert Warden, Co-Head of Private Equity and Senior Managing Director at Cerberus, added: “We are excited to partner with KBS and build on the foundational initiatives that GI Partners has implemented over the past five years. We look forward to working with Mark and the KBS team to deliver on the significant opportunities ahead.”

About KBS
Kellermeyer Bergensons Services, LLC is a leading North American provider of technology-enabled, integrated facility management services to the industrial, commercial, logistics, retail, and grocery sectors. With more than 64,000 active customer locations in all 50 U.S. states, Canada, and Puerto Rico, KBS sets the industry standard for delivering consistently high quality and cost-effective facility service solutions. For more information on Kellermeyer Bergensons Services, please visit www.kbs-services.com.

About GI Partners
Founded in 2001, GI Partners is a private investment firm based in San Francisco, California. The firm has raised $19 billion in capital from leading institutional investors around the world to invest in private equity, real estate, and data infrastructure strategies. The private equity team invests primarily in companies in the Healthcare, IT Infrastructure, Services, and Software sectors. The real estate team invests across a broad range of platforms and strategies. The data infrastructure team invests primarily in hard asset infrastructure businesses underpinning the digital economy. For more information on GI Partners and its entire portfolio, please visit www.gipartners.com.

About Cerberus
Founded in 1992, Cerberus is a global leader in alternative investing with over $40 billion in assets across complementary credit, private equity, and real estate strategies. We invest across the capital structure where our integrated investment platforms and proprietary operating capabilities create an edge to improve performance and drive long-term value. Our tenured teams have experience working collaboratively across asset classes, sectors, and geographies to seek strong risk-adjusted returns for our investors. For more information about our people and platforms, visit us at www.cerberus.com.

Media Contacts:

Cerberus:
David Millar / Abi Genis
Sard Verbinnen & Co.
212-687-8080

GI Partners:
Chris Tofalli
Chris Tofalli Public Relations, LLC
914-834-4334
chris@tofallipr.com