DBi Services Acquires TME Enterprises to Expand Infrastructure Maintenance Operations
DBi Services announced its second acquisition in the past two months as the Hazleton, Pennsylvania-based company continues to build its position as a leading provider of roadway maintenance and infrastructure operations and facility management services.
With the purchase of TME Enterprises, DBi Services picks up a company, based in Chesapeake, Virginia, that provides highway asset maintenance, including mowing along highway rights of way and upkeep of highway rest stops, schools, parks, libraries, fire stations, water towers, waste water treatment sites and high-security government facilities.
Founded in 1992 by Matt Ehrenzeller, TME operates a fleet of more than 260 trucks and has more than 300 employees at 14 locations in Virginia and Florida.
In November, DBi Services acquired Mercier’s Inc., a company based in South Point, Ohio, that provides highway and rail line maintenance services with locations in Harmans, Maryland, and Huntington, West Virginia.
Terms were not disclosed for either transaction.
Executives at TME and Mercier’s each said they were convinced that joining forces with DBi Services would be good for their businesses and employees.
“Our organizations come from very similar backgrounds,” Ehrenzeller said in a statement Jan. 11. “Now with the combined best practices and efficiencies of both companies, DBi will continue to be the industry leader and provide our customers with the highest-quality services.”
Craig Mercier, who founded his company in 1978, said the sale “is the beginning of a new chapter that will greatly grow the business and careers of our employees.”
ZinoDBi Services also started in 1978 as a small commercial and residential maintenance company by Paul and Neal DeAngelo. The company now has more than 60 locations and 2,100 employees in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
In 2016, the DeAngelo brothers agreed to sell an equity stake in the business to Sterling Partners, a Chicago investment firm, and hired Roger Zino, a former CEO at Valley Crest Cos., to become CEO of DBi Services.
Zino said he sees opportunities for growth as states and municipalities outsource more of the services needed to maintain highways and bridges.
“The things we do are designed to improve safety, mobility and extend the life of assets,” Zino told Transport Topics. “We do things like vegetation management, filling potholes, striping roadways and incident management. We have contracts where we are responsible for specific roadways or structures and we have arrangements where we are performing specific activities, such as bridge inspections.”
The company also has developed a number of proprietary products and services, including trucks that apply an epoxy material to road surfaces to improve traction and a system that processes highly accurate digital images to assess the condition of road surfaces.
Zino declined to say how much revenue the company is generating, although company officials in 2016 disclosed that DBi Services was generating “several hundred million dollars in revenue per year.”
“We have been growing at a rate of around 12% to 14% annually, and we expect more going forward,” Zino said.
Spending on infrastructure services is projected to reach $40 trillion globally by 2030, according to research firm Cohen and Steers, a New York investment company that manages equities in infrastructure, commodities and natural resources.
In addition to DBi Services, Sterling owns a stake in Brace Industrial Group and Hoffman Southwest Corp. as part of a portfolio of business services. Brace provides scaffolding, insulation, painting and fire-proofing services to industrial plant operators. Hoffman provides underground pipe inspection and repair services and cleaning and rehabilitation of sewage pipelines for cities, homeowners and utilities.
