GTCR sells stake in Park Place Technologies to Charlesbank

Transaction Expands Shareholder Base and Provides Park Place Additional Access to Capital for Growth

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Jul 23, 2019, 07:25 ET

MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio, CHICAGO and BOSTON, July 23, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- GTCR, a Chicago-based private equity firm, today announced it has agreed to sell a stake in Park Place Technologies, a leading global third-party maintenance (TPM) provider, to Charlesbank Capital Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2019. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Park Place Technologies provides a post-warranty alternative for storage, server and networking hardware maintenance for IT data centers. Park Place provides customers with 24/7 access to a multi-lingual support center, advanced engineers with decades of experience and ParkView^TM, an award winning, secure, hosted monitoring service that proactively identifies component failures and probable cause across a single pane of glass. Headquartered in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, the company services more than 16,000 customers in over 140 countries with more than 1,200 employees.

Since GTCR's acquisition in 2015, Park Place has achieved strong organic growth by expanding its salesforce and technical capabilities, entering new international markets and launching ParkView^TM. Park Place's growth has been further aided by its acquisition activity, completing 11 acquisitions since 2016. The result of these initiatives has seen revenue and EBITDA grow significantly under GTCR's ownership.

Chris Adams, CEO of Park Place, said: "GTCR has been a highly strategic partner supportive of our growth efforts in recent years and we are excited to continue our partnership. We are thrilled to add a new partner in Charlesbank and value their expertise and insight in technology and data center infrastructure. We look forward to working with both firms who share our vision and commitment to scaling the business further." Mr. Adams continued, "More importantly, we look forward to continuing to provide our customers with exceptional service while selectively identifying acquisitions to bolster Park Place's position in the market."

David Donnini, Managing Director at GTCR, said: "We want to congratulate the entire Park Place team on their accomplishments over the last three and a half years. Since we partnered with Chris and the team, Park Place has achieved impressive growth through organic investments in its salesforce and product offering and through acquisitions to create a leading global TPM provider. We believe strongly in Park Place's future and look forward to executing on the continued opportunities."

Ryan Carroll, Managing Director at Charlesbank, said: "Park Place is a leader in the resilient TPM market, with a diverse and growing customer base, a consistent and predictable cash-generative business model, and numerous opportunities for equity value creation." He added, "We know the GTCR team well from a prior shared investment and are delighted to partner with them on this opportunity. We look forward to working with Chris Adams and his talented management team in the company's next chapter of growth."

Park Place and GTCR were advised by UBS Investment Bank, Harris Williams and Lazard as financial advisors and Kirkland & Ellis LLP as legal counsel. Ropes & Gray LLP served as legal counsel to Charlesbank.

About Park Place Technologies

Founded in 1991, Park Place Technologies provides a post-warranty alternative to storage, server and networking hardware maintenance for IT data centers. With 24/7 access to a global contact center, support from the industry's most advanced engineers and a wide array of industry leading and award-winning services such as ParkView^TM, Park Place Technologies empowers its customers to improve operational speed and maximize uptime. With more than 16,000 customers, including all tier-one OEMs, Park Place Technologies' services are spread across 55,000 data centers in more than 140 countries.

About GTCR

Founded in 1980, GTCR is a leading private equity firm focused on investing in growth companies in the Financial Services & Technology, Healthcare, Technology, Media & Telecommunications and Growth Business Services industries. The Chicago-based firm pioneered The Leaders Strategy™ - finding and partnering with management leaders in core domains to identify, acquire and build market-leading companies through transformational acquisitions and organic growth. Since its inception, GTCR has invested more than $15 billion in over 200 companies. For more information, please visit www.gtcr.com.

About Charlesbank Capital Partners

Based in Boston and New York, Charlesbank Capital Partners is a middle-market private equity investment firm managing more than $5 billion of capital. Charlesbank focuses on management-led buyouts and growth capital financings, generally investing in companies with enterprise values of $150 million to $1.5 billion, and also engages in opportunistic credit and technology investments. The firm seeks to partner with strong management teams to build companies with sustainable competitive advantage and excellent prospects for growth. For more information, please visit www.charlesbank.com.

Media Contacts:

For Park Place Technologies

Jennifer Deutsch | +1 440-991-3105 | [email protected]

For GTCR

Eileen Rochford | +1 312-953-3305 | [email protected]

For Charlesbank

Maura Turner | +1 617-619-5457 | [email protected]

SOURCE GTCR