GRIMES, Iowa -- Car wash supplier Ryko Manufacturing Co. has announced that Trivest Partners, a private investment firm focused on partnering with founder and family-owned businesses in the United States and Canada, has made a substantial investment in and now owns the Ryko brand, as well as the assets and operations of the company.
The change helps to position the company for long-term growth and success within the car wash market, it said.
Trivest brings to Ryko not only a solid capital structure, but also a strong history of growing a portfolio of companies [image-nocss] through superior customer service, said the company.
Tom Carleton, CEO of Ryko, said, "Ryko emerges from this transaction as the largest car wash equipment and service provider in North America, with a clean balance sheet, and a solid capital partner. Throughout our 37 year history, we have focused on superior customer service and on innovation in unattended car wash operations. This new investment is a reflection of our commitment to grow our long-term market position, technology and service offering."
This change also allows chairman Jim Nelson to meet his objective to retire fully from Ryko and pursue other interests, Carleton said. "His 37 years of leadership since the inception of the company has positioned Ryko as a recognized leader in the industry, and created the opportunity for us to build on his success," Carleton said in a letter to distributors.
"Your day-to-day interface with Ryko will not change," he added. "We will continue to use the same company name and business processes. The complete Ryko management team is on board to support this ownership transition and quickly resolve any related issues.... We have made many operating adjustments since 2008 as necessary to maintain our profitability during a difficult market downturn. We also invested a great amount of our management's efforts with our banks and financial partners to secure this new investment."
"This partnership with Trivest will allow us to refocus and re-energize our efforts to improve our customer service and distributor support, and expand our customer base. With this additional capital, we will be building up our engineering capacity to deliver innovative new car wash products faster, and, in the first 60 days, increasing the inventory levels of critical service parts to reduce customer downtime and meet your priority delivery needs. We will be turning our management attention towards developing and promoting our leading car wash solutions, and the expansion of our service and product market share," he said.
Coral Gables, Fla.-based Trivest Partners has completed more than 150 transactions totaling more than $4.5 billion in value.
Grimes, Iowa-based Ryko supplies and services a full line of friction and touchfree rollover car washes, along with conveyor, drive-through and self-service car wash systems. Ryko also offers and supports a comprehensive range of car wash support systems including chemicals, water quality, activation, payment, doors and vacuums.
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