Houlihan Lokey Advises Apex Companies

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce the sale of Apex Companies, LLC (Apex), a portfolio company of Sentinel Capital Partners (Sentinel), to Morgan Stanley Capital Partners (MSCP). The transaction closed on January 31, 2023.

Apex, headquartered in Rockville, Maryland, is a leading environmental consulting and engineering firm specializing in a broad range of environmental and infrastructure needs. Apex serves a large and diverse client base spanning both the public and private sectors and a broad range of end markets, including energy, industrials, manufacturing, real estate, retail, and telecom. An established leader in stormwater compliance and environmental services, Apex also offers a robust portfolio of services in water infrastructure and resources, compliance and assurance (including ESG consulting), health and safety, transportation, and civil engineering. Apex has more than 1,100 professionals operating across 50 nationwide offices and also has the largest stormwater management and compliance practice in the country.

Sentinel specializes in buying and building middle-market businesses in the United States and Canada in partnership with management. Sentinel targets aerospace and defense, business services, consumer, distribution, food and restaurants, franchising, healthcare, and industrials businesses. Sentinel invests in management buyouts, recapitalizations, corporate divestitures, and going-private transactions.

MSCP, part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, is a leading middle-market private equity platform that has invested capital in a broad spectrum of industries for more than three decades. MSCP mainly focuses on investments in North America and seeks to create value in portfolio companies, primarily in a series of subsectors in the business services, consumer, healthcare, education, and industrials markets, with an emphasis on driving significant organic and acquisition growth through an operationally focused approach.

Houlihan Lokey served as a financial advisor to Apex. This transaction highlights Houlihan Lokey’s preeminent position and continued success advising clients in the environmental and engineering services sectors.