Livingstone advises Waterfront Brands on sale to MPE Partners

Livingstone is pleased to announce the sale of Waterfront Brands (“Waterfront” or the “Company”), a portfolio company of Invision Capital (“Invision”), to MPE Partners (“MPE”). Terms were not disclosed.

Headquartered in Fergus Falls, MN, with additional manufacturing facilities in Claremore, OK, and Fort Lauderdale, FL, Waterfront is the industry-leading designer and manufacturer of premium watercraft lifts, docks, and related accessories. Under its three flagship brands, ShoreMaster, HydroHoist, and Neptune Boat Lifts, Waterfront offers a complete product line-up to more than 700 independent dealers and distributors across North America and sells direct-to-consumer through both retail locations and its eCommerce websites.

“Invision was successful in partnering with a strong management team, led by CEO Don Hurley, in building the only boat lift and dock company with a national footprint, serving every water type and watercraft across the United States and Canada under our ownership,” said Robert Castillo, Managing Director at Invision. “The team’s tireless execution on its strategic initiatives resulted in strong operating performance while transforming the business into the market leader.”

Don Hurley, CEO of Waterfront, commented, “Livingstone provided terrific transaction execution and thought leadership to Waterfront throughout the sale process. They managed the process every step of the way, ultimately connecting us with a high-caliber set of interested parties. We are excited to be partnering with MPE to execute the next chapter of our growth plan.”

Karl Freimuth, Partner at Livingstone, commented, “Don and the Waterfront team built a valuable enterprise with market-leading brands known for exceptional quality and best-in-class customer service. The Company was a coveted asset and represents another successful transaction for Livingstone’s global industrial practice. We expect demand for high-quality targets to remain incredibly robust for the balance of 2021.”

Headquartered in Chicago, IL, Invision is a middle-market private equity firm providing “flexible capital” to facilitate buyouts, recapitalizations, and growth investments in manufacturing, distribution, and service companies.  Invision’s “flexible capital” strategy facilitates its investments across a broad spectrum of capital needs and business life cycle stages. Invision can provide varying types of follow-on capital to meet businesses changing needs.

Based in Cleveland, OH, and Boston, MA, MPE seeks to be the preferred partner for entrepreneur- and family-owned companies. MPE invests in profitable, lower middle-market companies with transaction values up to $250 million.  MPE has two primary target investment areas: high-value manufacturing and commercial & industrial services.

Waterfront is Livingstone’s 185th transaction completed since 2018, and the 75th global industrial transaction completed in the same timeframe following the sales of Beranek to J&E, Lesman to Kele, LT Harnett to A&R, Cummins Allison to Crane, Capital Southwest’s portfolio company, SpotSee, to Harbour Group, Royal Truck Body to Shyft Group, and Artistic Carton to Graphic Packaging.

Baker Hostetler served as legal counsel while Ernst & Young provided transaction-related accounting services to Waterfront.  Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky, and Popeo, P.C. served as legal counsel, and BKD provided transaction-related accounting services to MPE.