NewelPartners

Lower mid-market buyouts · Fund I

Know what happens on Monday before you sign.

A written plan for the hundred days after close, agreed before you sign. Newel Partners makes control investments in testing and inspection, specialty engineering and commercial facility services businesses from Maine to Virginia, with $2 to $10 million of EBITDA. Three partners, one fund.

Check a deal against our criteriaFor founders: the hundred days after close

Looking down a worn stone spiral stair, its steps turning around a thick central stone post.
Pl. 1A stone stair turns around its newel, the post that carries every step.
EBITDA
$2–10 million
Ownership
Control, with founder rollover
Sectors
B2B services
Region
Northeast and Mid-Atlantic
Offices
New York and Philadelphia

Sectors

Three trades that keep buildings and their owners in compliance.

The work is required by code, contract or insurer, so it comes back every year. Customers choose on reputation and response time, and the strongest operators are almost all owned by the people who started them.

Close view of a white laboratory microscope, its eyepieces and objective lens in soft light.

Sector 01

Pl. 2

Testing and inspection

Laboratories and field teams that test materials, water, air and equipment against a standard, and sign the report.

  • Accredited labs with repeat clients
  • Inspection programs priced per site, per year
Stacked steel I-beams in a workshop, the bolt holes in their flanges catching the light.

Sector 02

Pl. 3

Specialty engineering services

Licensed engineering firms that design and certify the systems inside existing buildings: fire protection, structural repair, facades, elevators.

  • Stamped work for owners and insurers
  • Firms of 30 to 200 engineers and technicians
Grey service pipes bending in parallel across a board-formed concrete wall.

Sector 03

Pl. 4

Commercial facility services

Contractors that maintain what is already built: mechanical systems, fire and life safety, backflow and water treatment.

  • Revenue under service agreements
  • Hospitals, schools, offices and plants

For bankers and brokers

Know where you stand before you send the book.

Our criteria, in full. Or answer four questions in the fit check and see what a partner would say.

Size
$2–10 million of EBITDA. Smaller as an add-on.
Ownership
Majority stake. Founders keep a meaningful share.
Sectors
Testing and inspection, specialty engineering, commercial facility services.
Region
Headquartered between Maine and Virginia.
Sellers
Founders, families and management teams.
Response
A partner replies to every teaser within two business days.
Fit check

Four answers

Sector
EBITDA
$4.5M
Headquarters
Seller

In range.

Send the teaser. A partner reads it and replies within two business days, with a yes, a no, or the questions we would need answered.

  • SectorCore sector.
  • EBITDAInside $2–10M.
  • RegionInside our region.
  • SellerThe sellers we are built for.
Email the teaser to deals@

Nothing here is stored or sent. It is the same test a partner applies on a call.

For founders

The hundred days after close, planned with you.

The plan is written with you during diligence, and you approve it before we sign. This is how a typical one runs.

  1. Before signingThe plan

    Written down, with you.

    Who reports to whom, what we will change, what we will leave alone, and what it costs. You approve it before we sign.

  2. Day1

    Customers hear it from you.

    Same name on the door and on the reports. The same people answer the phone. You send the letter; we stay out of it.

  3. Days2–30

    We listen before we change anything.

    A partner is on site two days a week, meets every manager and rides along on jobs. The software and the logo stay as they are.

  4. Days31–60

    The back office, quietly.

    A monthly close in ten business days. Banking, insurance and benefits move only where the move saves money or lowers risk for your people.

  5. Days61–99

    The role you could not fund.

    Usually a controller or a head of sales. You choose the person. The company pays for the seat it has needed for years.

  6. Day100

    A board of five meets.

    You hold a seat, and so does an independent from your trade. We go through the plan line by line, then write the next one together.

What stays yours

  • Your title, for as long as you want it.Some founders run the company for years after we invest. Others hand over on a schedule they set.
  • A stake alongside ours.Founders roll a meaningful share into the deal, on the same terms as the fund.
  • A partner who picks up.One partner leads each company and gives you a direct line, on weekends too.

Partners

Three partners. Each spent a decade inside a larger firm, then left to do this.

Claire Ashby

Managing Partner · New York

Twelve years at a New York buyout firm, the last five running its business services group. Before finance, a materials engineer at a testing laboratory in New Jersey.

Leads on testing and inspection.

Daniel Mercer

Partner · Philadelphia

Ten years at a Boston middle-market firm, where he sat on the boards of six services companies. Grew up in his family’s commercial mechanical business in Worcester.

Leads on facility services.

Ravi Sethna

Partner, Operations · Philadelphia

Chief financial officer of a regional engineering firm through two changes of ownership, then an operating partner at a Philadelphia growth fund.

Leads the hundred-day plan at every company.

A dark metal spiral stair against a pale wall, its shadow drawn in sharp lines beside it.
Pl. 5Steel stair and its shadow.

For investors and diligence teams

Fund materials are shared privately.

Newel Partners manages one fund. Materials for limited partners, including the partners’ full histories and references, are provided directly and as the firm’s counsel directs.

Diligence requests go to ir@newel.example. A partner answers each one.

Write to a partner.

New York and Philadelphia

Bankers and brokers

deals@newel.example

Teasers and books. A reply within two business days, either way.

Founders

partners@newel.example

Reaches all three partners and no one else. Confidential from the outset.

Investors

ir@newel.example

Diligence requests and fund materials, shared privately.