William Blair acted as the financial advisor to Empire Today, a portfolio company of H.I.G. Capital (H.I.G.), in connection with its sale to Charlesbank Capital Partners. Management and an affiliate of H.I.G. made significant investments into the business.
Transaction Highlights
- Deep sector expertise: Empire Today and H.I.G recognized William Blair’s extensive knowledge and experience advising consumer and residential services businesses and our ability to articulate compelling growth stories with powerful category demand drivers to investors. This sector expertise allowed the transaction team to guide management through a bespoke and effective marketing process.
- Unmatched buyer relationships and insights: William Blair’s highly relevant and unique insights with the most likely financial investors and insights gained from the 2020 Private Equity Conference enabled William Blair to provide differentiated intelligence for a highly customized and efficient process.
- Process and M&A execution excellence: William Blair’s transaction team designed a competitive process targeting the most relevant financial and select strategic buyers. The tailored, high-touch approach yielded competition with multiple parties from start to finish, including two actionable final proposals delivered at the re-bid date.
About the Companies
Empire Today is the country’s largest shop-at-home, direct-to-consumer flooring company, operating in about 75 of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States. A leading provider of installed home improvements since 1959, the company is well-known for its “800-588-2300 Empire Today” jingle. Empire Today serves residential customers with a wide selection of carpet and hard surface flooring products for homes and also sells fully-installed flooring solutions to businesses, multi-family properties, restoration companies, iBuyers, REITs, and other organizations.
Based in Boston, Charlesbank Capital Partners is a middle-market private equity investment firm managing more than $15 billion of cumulative capital. Charlesbank focuses on management-led buyouts and growth capital financings, and engages in opportunistic credit investments. The firm seeks to partner with strong management teams to build companies with sustainable competitive advantage and excellent prospects for growth.
H.I.G. Capital is a Miami, Florida-based private equity and alternative assets investment firm with $45 billion of equity capital under management. The firm operates a family of private equity, growth equity, credit/special situation, primary lending, syndicated credit, and real estate funds across a team of over 400 investment professionals with substantial operating, consulting, technology, and financial management experience.
Learn more about our consumer and retail investment banking expertise.