Company Overview
Union Quarries, Inc. (“Union” or the “Company”) is a privately held aggregates producer headquartered in Carlisle, PA, near Harrisburg. The Company has been providing crushed stone, asphalt and ready-mix concrete to the central Pennsylvania market since 1961. Its customers consist of regional contractors engaged in a variety of building construction, paving, road construction and related infrastructure projects.
Situation
Over the past decade, Union’s shareholders have invested heavily in both the management and operations of the business. For example, Union has significantly expanded operations by replacing the crushing circuit to increase throughput capacity and operational efficiencies. Management also expanded mining permits with input from the Central Pennsylvania Conservancy, which ensures the availability of materials for decades to come with minimal environmental impact. After being owned equally by two families for more than 60 years, however, one of the family shareholder groups lacked an intra-family succession option. Without a clear succession plan, this 50% shareholder group elected to pursue a sale, albeit in as confidential and expedited a manner as possible. All of the shareholders emphasized the need to find an acquirer that would provide a similar family-business culture for its employees.
Solution
The selling Union shareholder group engaged Griffin Financial Group, LLC as its investment banker to assist in the sale of their 50% equity stake in the Company. Griffin launched a competitive sale process in June 2022 with a very limited group of strategic acquirers who would best meet the shareholders’ goals. This process generated offers from each of the parties, and as a result, the remaining family shareholder group elected to sell their shares as well, and engaged Griffin for that purpose. Griffin’s sale process, therefore, ultimately resulted in the sale of 100% of the Company’s equity to York Building Products Co., Inc. on September 9, 2022. York is a strategic competitor to Union that serves the mid-Atlantic region, and is the aggregates and materials affiliate of The Stewart Companies, a York, PA-based, family-owned group of companies serving the construction, materials, real estate and automotive industries. The entire Union team will join York’s aggregates division. Chris Wright, President of Union Quarries noted, “We believe our customers and employees will be very pleased with the future course of the company and look forward to this new chapter in our history.”
For more information on this transaction, contact John A. Lee, Senior Managing Director, at 610.205.6106, or Andrew D. Rudner, Senior Associate, at 610.205.6102.
