Riverside Continues to Blaze a Trail with Latest Add-On to CertaSite

The Riverside Company, a global private equity firm focused on the smaller end of the middle market, has invested in Great Lakes Fire & Safety Equipment (Great Lakes), a family-owned business in Alpena, Michigan. The investment is an add-on to Riverside’s CertaSite platform, a fire and life safety company that is committed to the highest levels of customer service, responsiveness, building safety and code compliance. This is CertaSite’s sixth investment in Michigan and expands the company’s service territory into the Upper Peninsula.

CertaSite goes beyond compliance, focusing on partnerships and professionalism while providing customers a simplified and dependable solution to managing fire protection and life safety systems in commercial buildings.

“We’re excited to continue the expansion of our rapidly growing company, CertaSite,” said Riverside Managing Partner Loren Schlachet. “With the addition of Great Lakes, we will expand our geographic reach and improve the value proposition to customers through leveraging CertaSite’s full suite of services including sprinklers, backflow testing and other services not previously offered by Great Lakes.”

CertaSite is another example of Riverside’s commitment to investing in the Business Services Industry. To date, the firm has completed more than 270 investments in this area and has a team of global experts dedicated to growing companies in this specialization.

“As we continue building out CertaSite, we’ll look for additional add-ons for full-service fire protection companies, specializing in the inspection, monitoring, repair and maintenance and design of fire and life safety equipment including extinguishers, sprinklers, alarm systems, suppression systems and other fire and life safety systems,” said Riverside Principal John McKernan.

To date, CertaSite has now invested in 11 fire protection and life safety companies and is actively engaged in bringing new businesses under the CertaSite umbrella. The CertaSite family includes: ABC Fire Extinguisher Co. (Youngstown, Ohio); Advanced Fire, a CertaSite Company (Pennsylvania); Approved Protection Systems (Michigan); Approved Safety and Security (South Bend, Indiana); Company One Suppression (Illinois and Iowa); County Fire Protection (Ohio); Erlich Fire Protection (Michigan); Field’s Fire Protection (Michigan); Great Lakes Fire & Safety (Michigan); Spears Fire & Safety (Michigan); and Starfire Systems and Starfire Suppression Equipment (Wisconsin).

Working with Schlachet and McKernan on the deal were Assistant Vice President Kenneth Johnson, Analyst Caitlin McGrath, Finance Director Bart Thielen and Operating Partner Ervin Cash. Principal, Origination, Cheryl Strom sourced the deal for Riverside.