LandCare USA
Fieldstone Partners initiated in 1997 the idea for a national company in the commercial landscape services market. Prior to that, there were no national companies in the field, with limited exit opportunities for regional landscape operators. There were also a number of clear economies of scale, including regional marketing and substantially lower costs for workers’ compensation insurance.
The project included the following steps:
- Fieldstone secured the support of Notre Capital, a leader in the field of consolidation strategies, which agreed to act as a project sponsor.
- Working with Notre, we researched over 100 leading landscape companies and selected seven that qualified as founding companies, providing consolidated pro forma revenues of almost $120 million.
- We helped finalize merger agreements between the seven founding companies with LandCare USA, a new holding company.
- In June 1998 Fieldstone helped complete an initial public offering for LandCare, with BT Alex. Brown as lead underwriter, and LandCare immediately listed on the NYSE.
- Fieldstone continued as an acquisition advisor, helping build the company to over $400 million in pro forma annual revenues, and also advised in a successful merger with ServiceMaster. The merger led to the formation of TruGreen LandCare, which became the largest commercial landscape company in the country, with over $1 billion in annual commercial landscape revenues.
We continue to maintain strong relationships with a large number of the LandCare founding partners and others from the management team, over 15 years after LandCare’s public offering.