September 12, 2006
Celerity Partners, Inc. Acquires Personnel Insurance Services, Inc.
LOS ANGELES, CA
On September 12th, Celerity Partners completed the acquisition of Personnel Insurance Services Inc., a benefits brokerage and administrator based in Walnut Creek, California focusing exclusively on 501(c)(3) (non profit) entities. With a current base of 470 customers representing approximately 20,000 lives, the Company enjoys a 95% recurring revenue base, with a level of profitability materially in excess of any of its peers.
Northstar Capital provided $15 million of senior and subordinated financing, as well as $2 million of equity for the transaction.
Charles Yeomans will be joining the Company as CEO. Charles was previously Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer of Frenkel & Co., the second largest independent insurance brokerage in New York.
Joining Celerity in the project will be two industry veterans of national stature in building scale businesses in benefits and insurance. These executives include Barney Mizel, the co-founder and former Chairman of USI Holdings, Inc., (USI) (NASDAQ: USIH), one of the top ten insurance brokers in the United States, where from 1994 to 2001 he led USI in completing over 100 acquisitions of insurance brokers and employee benefits firms, building the company’s annual revenues from startup to over $350 million; and John Addeo, founder and former CEO of Alliant Resources Group, Inc. (Alliant), a GTCR-backed company which he grew from a startup to the 14th largest insurance broker in the U.S., with $200 million in revenues and $60 million in EBITDA, and sold to Lindsey Goldberg & Bessemer for $540 million in 2005.
With the close of the Personnel Insurance Services transaction, Celerity Partners has completed the sixth leveraged acquisition or recapitalization in which it has functioned as the lead equity sponsor in the last 14 months, with a total consideration of approximately $250 million.
ABOUT CELERITY PARTNERS: Celerity Partners is a private equity fund whose objective is to build businesses, in partnership with management, to preeminence in their markets. Since its inception in 1995, Celerity has invested in a number of businesses in a wide variety of industries with a total transaction value of $2.5 billion. Celerity has offices in Los Angeles and Menlo Park, California.