“Worry about getting better; bigger will take care of itself.”
The HighGrove Partners team sees this quote daily, as it's plastered on its walls at the company's facility in Mableton, Georgia. It’s a Gary Comer quote – the man who founded the Lands’ End mail-order clothing retailer. But they’re words lived out by CEO Jim McCutcheon and his team, which has spent the last 36 years getting better at its services – namely commercial maintenance
In November, Agellus Capital announced it had acquired HighGrove Partners. McCutcheon and his wife, Erin, who is the company’s chief financial officer, spent 18 months deliberating on the next best options for the company. McCutcheon says he saw this as the right time to sell because the company’s grown roughly 18% each year and has a high amount of long-term employees, including 22 second-generation team members. Two of his own family members are second-generation, too.
In Atlanta, McCutcheon has seen a number of fellow competitor companies sell to private equity or a larger company over the last several years. “I’ve got a lot of buddies that had already gone through this,” he says. “I joked that I was one of the last OGs left.”
McCutcheon says the M&A process involved a blend of fun and caution. “Frankly it was an incredible journey, honestly. It’s easy to get swept in the adulation,” he says. “People say, ‘Gosh, you guys are wonderful,’ but you’ve got to put that aside and look at somebody to say, ‘Can we truly build something special together?’”
McCutcheon – who’s built his company using LEAN and EOS principles for the last few decades – believes he’s found that special partner in Agellus. Other landscapers he’s talked with felt they had to explain the green industry to their new private equity partners. Not Agellus, which had some background in landscaping after dealing with previous partners.
Agellus is also growing fast: It had been seeking $400 million in investments over a two-year period, but McCutcheon says they did it in four-and-a-half months despite bringing in no prior investors or limited partners. “Some big money folks saw something in (Agellus),” he says. “They’re extremely smart and energetic, and I like that.”
He says Agellus will help HighGrove delve into emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.
“Really, from a partner standpoint, I just wanted to make sure that we didn’t get somebody whose sole motivation was about the numbers. Something I really liked about Agellus was that while numbers were important, they were engaged with the things that made HighGrove unique and how we can take that into the market.”
McCutcheon says the HighGrove branding will remain the same, as he is a big believer in brand equity, especially in his existing marketplace in Atlanta. As for McCutcheon right now – he and Erin will continue to travel to and visit with other partners to learn more about what they do best.
“The interesting thing, I described it as jumping off of one treadmill and onto another, and this other one might be moving faster,” McCutcheon says. “I’m proud of what we did with HighGrove, but… it’s a challenge to me that I’ve got to broaden my thinking even far beyond the Atlanta area.”
