Houlihan Lokey Advises Tower Engineering Professionals
Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Tower Engineering Professionals (TEP), a portfolio company of Prairie Capital (Prairie), has been successfully acquired by H.I.G. Infrastructure, an investment fund managed by H.I.G. Capital (H.I.G.). The transaction closed on April 11, 2023.
Headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, TEP is one of the largest wireless and wireline engineering and infrastructure services providers to tower and telecom customers. The company’s offering includes inspection and mapping services, structural and civil engineering, fiber engineering and maintenance, project and construction management, and site acquisition and survey services. TEP has locations throughout the United States and Canada.
Prairie’s investment thesis focused on expanding TEP from a founder-owned business to a scalable platform company in the highly fragmented and growing telecom services industry. This required substantial company-building investments, including (i) opening new office locations in attractive geographies; (ii) hiring key management to supplement the incumbent team; (iii) investing in technology to enhance project management capabilities, customer service, financial reporting, and performance analytics; and (iv) acquiring and integrating specialized telecom engineering firms to expand TEP’s service offering, gain density in existing markets, and enter new markets. These investments, among others, enabled TEP’s revenue to grow more than 3.5x during Prairie’s hold period.
H.I.G. is a lending global alternative assets investment firm with $55 billion of equity capital under management. Based in Miami, and with offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Atlanta, as well as international affiliate offices in London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Bogotá, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo, H.I.G. specializes in providing both debt and equity capital to small and midsized companies, utilizing a flexible and operationally focused/value-added approach. Since its founding in 1993, H.I.G. has invested in and managed more than 400 companies worldwide. H.I.G. Infrastructure focuses on making value-add and core plus investments in the infrastructure sector.
Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor to Prairie and TEP and played a critical role in marketing, structuring, and negotiating the transaction. This deal further underscores the continued success and expertise of Houlihan Lokey in the engineering and telecommunications services sectors.