Dwyer Group, a leader in the home services industry, kicked off last week by announcing a new private equity partnership with Harvest Partners. The deal marks the fourth and largest private equity transaction of Dwyer Group in the franchise organization’s history.
And one of the best parts of BizCom’s PR journey as the agency of record has been to deliver that news each time and watch the headlines grow in prominence with every announcement. While any given day can be filled with good business stories, it is an epic adventure for a PR agency to disseminate news about a gigantic investment showcase. That has been our front row seat in the Dwyer Group investment playbook. And regardless of the global economy on any given year, Dwyer Group has proven to be a solid investment at each private equity announcement.
From Public to Private and Taking Over the World
BizCom served Dwyer Group when The Riverside Company took the organization private in 2003. We celebrated a successful sale and the spread of good news when TZP Group acquired Dwyer Group in 2010. And we had the good fortune to handle PR for Dwyer Group when Riverside made the momentous decision to invest in Dwyer Group a second time in 2014. Those announcements were an investment PR trifecta that revealed a growing organization at Dwyer Group headquarters alongside an expanding franchise network with more and more service brands. And as we’ve seen first-hand, a good thing just keeps on getting better at Dwyer Group.
Dwyer Group Acquisition by Harvest Partners Marks Largest Exit in Riverside History
The private equity frenzy in the franchising industry as a whole has seen a tremendous amount of activity. And this latest announcement for Dwyer comes after three-and-a-half years of incredible growth and success for the company under Riverside. Dwyer Group completed 11 add-on acquisitions, expanded and improved corporate facilities, made technological advancements and realized a long-time vision of effectively cross-marketing between its brands with the launch of Neighborly.
And the media once again has taken notice with coverage in the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! Finance, Business Manchester, business journals across the United States, industry trade publications and more.
Dwyer Group CEO Mike Bidwell was interviewed by KXXV-TV and spoke with the Waco Tribune-Herald saying, “This transaction will give The Dwyer Group the money to continue its expansion and likely will mean hiring more at the Waco corporate office.”
In an interview with Franchise Times, Bidwell said the acquisition pace might slow a bit from the frenzied clip of the last three-and-a-half years, but Harvest Partners has the capital to fuel much bigger transactions. “Some acquisitions have been in the 10s of millions of dollars and some have been north that. If we wanted to something in the 100s of millions of dollars range,” Harvest would be on board. “We’ve got some big ambitions here.”
It has been quite the trajectory for Dwyer Group, which has expanded from Rainbow International, the very first brand in 1981, to now 20 service brands with more than 3,200 franchisees. Meanwhile, BizCom once again has been along for the ride, and media coverage has reached 160 million impressions with local, national and international media.
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