Houlihan Lokey Advises Kele

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Kele, Inc., a portfolio company of Snow Phipps Group, LLC, has been acquired by The Stephens Group, LLC. The transaction closed on February 20, 2020.

Headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, Kele provides peripheral products and services to the building automation systems industry. Kele's product offering includes thousands of interface products, including sensors, transmitters, switches, gauges, and relays from more than 300 suppliers. The company's products can be integrated into pre-existing, new construction, and retrofit systems. In addition to having a robust product offering, Kele provides value-added services, including custom panel assembly, tagging and kitting, calibration and programming, and other assemblies.

Snow Phipps is a private equity firm focused on lower-middle-market control investments with $2.4 billion of total capital commitments raised since its founding in 2005. The firm generally focuses on companies in attractive subsectors across the industrials, services, and consumer industries and targets platform investments with enterprise values ranging from $100 million to $500 million. The Snow Phipps investment team collaborates with its operating partners and portfolio management teams to create value through an operationally focused strategy often led by organic or acquisition-driven growth.

The Stephens Group is a private investment firm that partners with talented management teams to help build valuable businesses. Backed by the resources of the Stephens family, The Stephens Group has a long history of providing sophisticated, strategic expertise and taking a partnership approach to help companies successfully achieve their strategic visions and build long-term value. With more than $1.5 billion invested since 2006, The Stephens Group targets investments in industries across the U.S., including industrial and commercial products and services, specialty distribution, B2B food and consumer products, and technology infrastructure and tech-enabled services, as well as select opportunistic situations.

Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor to Kele. Houlihan Lokey's Specialty Distribution team has earned a reputation for working with premier specialty distribution clients, providing superior client service and delivering outstanding results. This transaction highlights the firm's continued success advising market-leading specialty distributors of mission-critical parts.