Bertram Invests in Painting Contractor Percopo Coatings

Bertram Capital has made an investment in Percopo Coatings Company (PCC), a commercial and industrial painting, coating, and waterproofing contractor that works across the southeastern United States.

The investment in PCC is the fifth platform investment for Bertram's Ignite fund.

PCC applies and maintains the painted and protective surfaces of large buildings and infrastructure. Its crews handle interior and exterior commercial painting, waterproofing that keeps moisture out of walls, roofs, and below-grade structures, and seamless flooring poured as a single continuous surface for spaces that have to stay easy to clean.



PCC’s capabilities also include sandblasting to strip old coatings and rust, fireproofing and intumescent coatings that swell when heated to slow the spread of fire across structural steel, and restoration work on aging building fronts.

PCC's customers are commercial, industrial, and institutional building owners. The company has worked on airport terminals, hotels and resorts, theme parks, schools, and federal buildings, and it offers decorative themed finishes for hospitality and entertainment clients that want surfaces painted or textured to look like stone, metal, or other materials.



PCC was founded in 2003 by CEO Mike Percopo and Victoria Percopo and is headquartered about 13 miles north of Orlando in Longwood, Florida. Post closing, Mr. Percopo will continue to lead the business in partnership with Bertram Capital.

"We are proud to partner with Bertram to accelerate our next phase of growth and continue building on more than two decades of expertise, craftsmanship, and client relationships," said Mr. Percopo. "The team at Bertram demonstrated a clear understanding of our business, our people, and the standards we hold ourselves to. With the added digital capabilities of Bertram Labs, we believe we can further strengthen our operations and better serve our clients across the South."

Painting and coating large commercial buildings is a bigger business than the household version, and a far more fragmented one. The US painting and wall-covering contractor industry generates roughly $25 billion to $34 billion a year, according to industry trackers First Research and Vertical IQ, spread across tens of thousands of mostly small, independent operators. The 50 largest firms account for little more than 10% of the work, according to First Research.



Much of a commercial coatings contractor's revenue recurs. Protective coatings, waterproofing, and fireproofing all wear down and have to be redone on a schedule, and large property owners tend to prefer a single contractor that already knows their buildings. That combination of fragmentation, repeat work, and founder ownership is what has drawn private equity to the sector.

For Bertram, PCC is a platform in a fragmented regional market that the firm intends to build out through add-on acquisitions, supported by its in-house technology team, Bertram Labs.

[caption id="attachment_241777" align="alignright" width="120"] Zack Bassi[/caption]

"As backers of several scaled platforms across the trades, we appreciate the deep industry knowledge, relationships, entrepreneurial spirit, and grit required to operate a successful business in these categories," said Zack Bassi, a vice president at Bertram. "Mike and Victoria have worked tirelessly to establish PCC as a household name in painting and specialty coatings with discerning GCs, developers and facility managers. We look forward to supporting PCC's next phase of growth with the assistance of Bertram Labs, our in-house technology team."

Bertram Capital invests in lower middle-market companies through two strategies. Its flagship Bertram Capital fund backs control investments in businesses with EBITDA above $7.5 million, while Bertram Ignite, the fund behind the Percopo investment, makes both control and non-control investments in smaller companies with EBITDA of at least $3 million. Bertram was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Foster City, California.

Chicago-based Cook M&A, led by President Arnis Kins, was a financial advisor on the transaction.