Meritus Gas Partners Announces Partnership with Dallas-Based Airco Gases Southwest

NEW YORK, Jan. 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Meritus Gas Partners ("Meritus") announced today that it entered into a partnership with Airco Gases Southwest, LLC ("Airco"), headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 2020 with the acquisition of two well-established independent distributors, Welders Warehouse (located in Dallas and Waxahachie, Texas) and Allied Welding Supply (located in Denton, Texas), Airco has rapidly grown through organic efforts and further acquisitions to become a leading independent distributor of packaged gases and welding supplies servicing the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan region. The company is well-regarded for its commitment to quality and customer service, and its broad customer base represents various industries, including metal fabrication, construction, healthcare and food and beverage.

"Airco was created as the platform to acquire high performing industrial gas businesses, principally operating in North Texas," said founder Marvin Rodgers, III. "We targeted owners who wished to co-invest and remain engaged in their businesses to perpetuate the customer centric values so core to their operations. We have been successful in building our business consistent with this vision, but we identified an opportunity with Meritus, whose model mirrors ours, to build a business on a national scale. They are first-class and have taken this model to a level we could not achieve on our own." 

"We are pleased to be a part of the Meritus family," said Jeff Palmer, President of Airco. "The opportunity to continue to build on the Airco Dallas-Fort Worth strategy with Meritus and its member companies is exciting. Partnering with Meritus will allow us to offer new levels of products and services to our customers in Dallas-Fort Worth."

Rodgers, Palmer and their equity partners will maintain significant equity ownership in Meritus.

"Airco is a great fit for Meritus, and we are excited to welcome Marv, Jeff and their partners and employees into the Meritus family," said Meritus Chairman Scott Kaltrider. "The company's impressive growth in such a short time in the competitive Dallas-Fort Worth market is a testament to their leadership and business model. The Dallas-Fort Worth market is a top five industrial market in the US. Meritus operating company Mitchell Welding Supply is already successfully operating in the stretch of East Texas between the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and Shreveport, LA. Airco augments Mitchell's footprint to the west and furthers our growth plans to become the leading independent distributor in the region." 

About Meritus Gas Partners
Founded in December 2020, Meritus is a portfolio company of AEA Investors Small Business Private Equity. Meritus is assembling a national network of high-quality independent distributors of industrial, medical and specialty gases and welding and safety supplies, located in diverse geographies and serving growing end-markets. Meritus will partner with exceptional businesses and management teams, allow them to remain independent and entrepreneurial and support them to accelerate growth, improve business quality and enhance value. Owners are invited to invest meaningful equity into the Meritus holding company to allow them to share in the success of the overall platform. Visit us online at www.MeritusGas.com.

About AEA Investors 
AEA Investors LP was founded in 1968 by the Rockefeller, Mellon and Harriman family interests and S.G. Warburg & Co. as a private investment vehicle for a select group of industrial family offices with substantial assets. AEA has an extraordinary global network built over many years which includes leading industrial families, business executives and leaders; many of whom invest with AEA as active individual investors and/or join its portfolio company boards or act in other advisory roles. Today, AEA's approximately 120 investment professionals operate globally with offices in New York, Stamford, San Francisco, London, Munich and Shanghai. The firm manages funds that have approximately $19 billion of invested and committed capital including the leveraged buyouts of middle market companies and small business companies, growth capital and debt investments. AEA Small Business Private Equity is a strategy within AEA that currently manages $3 billion of invested and committed capital. The team seeks to help grow and transform companies at the lower end of the middle market by sponsoring growing companies with proven management teams and superior business models.

Contacts

AEA Investors
Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher
Michael Freitag, Kate Thompson and Woomi Yun
+1 (212) 355-4449
[email protected]

SOURCE Meritus Gas Partners