NORWALK, Conn.--01 December 2008-- GE Antares Capital today announced it served as administrative agent for a $79.5 million senior secured credit facility to support the acquisition of Maaco Franchising by Driven Brands, the parent company of Meineke Car Care Centers, Econo Lube N' Tune, AutoQual, Aero Colours, Drive N Style, and Tortal.net. Driven Brands is a portfolio company of Carousel Capital's third investment fund, Carousel Capital Partners III.
Founded in 1972, Maaco is a franchisor of auto body repair and painting with 47% of the US automotive production paint market and nearly 500 franchise centers operating in the U.S. and Canada. Maaco leads the industry with excellent service and value to customers. The company has been cited numerous times by Entrepreneur magazine throughout the past decade as #1 in the franchise category in its Annual Franchise 500 survey.
"Our team understands business cycles and can reliably deliver for our customers in difficult market environments," said Dave Swanson, Managing Director at GE Antares. "As the leader in middle market sponsor finance, we continue to deliver financing solutions that support our sponsor relationships."
Jason Schmidly, Partner at Carousel Capital said, "We have come to trust the hard-working team at GE Antares over the years. We appreciate how they worked with Carousel on this complex transaction involving the simultaneous acquisition of Driven Brands and Maaco. The acquisition of Maaco was a key component to the vision of the Driven Brands management team as it builds the leading automotive aftermarket franchising platform. We look forward to continuing our relationship."
About Carousel Capital
Carousel Capital is a private investment firm that invests in companies located in the Southeastern United States. Carousel's investor base includes institutional investors and a group of more than 100 current and former CEOs with significant operating experience. Since its inception, Carousel has invested in 27 companies primarily in three targeted growth sectors: business services; consumer products and services; and healthcare services.
About Driven Brands
Driven Brands, Inc., is headquartered in Charlotte, NC, and serves as parent company for the separate businesses: Meineke Car Care Centers, Inc. (a franchise-based automotive service and repair chain); Econo Lube & Tune (a franchised chain of automotive repair/quick lube services); a franchised network of mobile services consisting of AutoQual, Aero-Colours & Drive N Style (specializing in automotive interior reconditioning and maintenance, paint refinishing and restyling services for Car Dealerships) and Tortal.net (developer of on-line training solutions for a variety of industries).
About GE Antares Capital
GE Antares Capital is a unit of GE Capital - Global Sponsor Finance. With $13 billion in assets, and offices in Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, GE Antares offers a "one-stop" source for GE's lending and other services offered to middle market private equity sponsors, and is the top-ranked middle market PE lender through the first nine months of 2008. For more information, visit the GE Antares website at www.geantares.com. GE (NYSE: GE) is a diversified global infrastructure, finance and media company that is built to meet essential world needs. From energy, water, transportation and health to access to money and information, GE serves customers in more than 100 countries and employs more than 300,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.ge.com. GE is Imagination at Work.
Ned Reynolds
GE Capital
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