Granite Comfort, which provides services such as HVAC and plumbing infrastructure to residential customers in six states, has entered into a new asset-backed credit facility with East-West Bank, a publicly traded full service commercial bank. This facility is designed to support the continued rollout of Granite’s EASE Comfortâ product.
“Granite has been a first mover in introducing our ‘HVAC infrastructure-as-a-service’ product, EASE Comfort, into a highly fragmented market. Through our unique model for delivering this essential residential infrastructure, our customers enjoy our affordable, convenient, high-quality and environmentally efficient service and the new facility provides an attractive cost of capital that will accelerate our penetration rates,” Alex Black, CEO of Granite, said. “Our strategy has involved acquiring successful businesses with powerful local brands in attractive markets, more than 20 to date, and building on their success by maintaining their core competencies while both institutionalizing their processes. The success of our ‘always covered, always comfortable’ offering demonstrates that homeowners value the opportunity to avoid high upfront costs, and eliminate any surprise bills for repairs or replacement.”
“This new credit facility is another important milestone in Granite’s performance to date. Granite has made substantial investments in processes, systems and human capital in order to be able to create this highly efficient asset-based lending structure,” Marc Blair, chief operating officer and senior managing director of Tiger Infrastructure Partners, the majority investor in Granite, said. “Tiger’s investment thesis has been to leverage CEO Alex Black’s longstanding experience and our own expertise to consolidate leading franchises in the sector, while concurrently introducing the EASE Comfort product to create contracted, recurring revenues. The same stable, recession-resistant demand that Tiger identified in the ‘residential infrastructure’ sector, has been further validated by other, mega cap infrastructure institutions, who have also made investments in this essential infrastructure segment.”
“In addition to this achievement, in the past year, Granite has added key professionals at all levels and harmonized its internal operating systems, including its ERP and data systems to enhance the efficiency of its operations,” Black said. “We are using state-of-the art digital and AI technologies to reach our target markets, train our employees and monitor our KPIs. These actions differentiate our business model and provide our customers with ‘best-in-class’ offerings.”
Stephens acted as exclusive financial advisor and Foley & Lardner served as legal counsel to Granite on the credit facility.
