Oak Hill Capital announced today that it has completed the sale of Safe Fleet Holdings, LLC to Clarience Technologies, LLC. The combination of Safe Fleet, a leading provider of safety and productivity solutions for fleet vehicles, and Clarience, a global provider of visibility and safety technology solutions for transportation markets, provides Safe Fleet the global platform and resources to continue expanding on its mission: Saving lives. Preventing Injuries. Making fleets more productive.
“We want to thank John Knox and the rest of the Safe Fleet team for the successful partnership over the last six years,” said John Rachwalski, Partner at Oak Hill. “We invested in Safe Fleet with the strategic vision to leverage the Company’s niche, market-leading brands and entrenched customer base to create a differentiated, integrated platform of safety, productivity and connectivity solutions for fleet vehicles of all types. Both organically and through strategic acquisitions, we executed against that vision and believe we created a strategically valuable platform on exit.”
“Our partnership with Oak Hill resulted in the pivotal transformation of Safe Fleet into a market-leading platform of electro-mechanical products, digital / technology-enabled solutions and installation, repair and upfitting services,” stated Chairman and CEO of Safe Fleet John Knox. “I want to thank the entire Safe Fleet team for the incredible achievement over the last six years. We look forward to joining the Clarience team of companies.”
“The sale of Safe Fleet to a strategic buyer exemplifies Oak Hill’s highly targeted theme-based investment strategy,” said Brian Cherry, a Managing Partner at Oak Hill. “We have developed a repeatable investment process for identifying high-quality companies benefitting from secular macro tailwinds and seek to implement a tailored value creation plan to execute against our thesis. We want to thank the Safe Fleet team for the successful partnership.”
Baird acted as the lead financial advisor to Safe Fleet and Oak Hill on this transaction. Harris Williams LLC also acted as financial advisor to Safe Fleet and Oak Hill. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP served as legal counsel to Oak Hill. KPMG served as the accounting advisor to the Company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
About Oak Hill Capital Partners
Oak Hill is a longstanding private equity firm focused on the North America middle-market. Oak Hill is a specialist, theme-based investor dedicated to investing in the following industry sectors: Media & Communications, Industrials, Services, and Consumer. The Firm implements a highly systematic approach to theme development, proactive origination, and value creation in partnership with management to build franchises of lasting value. Over the past 35+ years, Oak Hill and its predecessors have raised over $20 billion of initial capital commitments and co-investments and invested in over 110 companies. For more information, please visit www.oakhill.com.
About Safe Fleet
Safe Fleet is a leading provider of safety solutions for fleet vehicles. Its best-of-breed smart solutions form an integrated safety platform for fleets of every type – School Bus, Transit, Fire, EMS, Law Enforcement, Work Truck, Truck & Trailer, Construction, Agriculture, Waste & Recycling, Industrial and Military. With a broad portfolio of market-leading brands, 1,900 employees, 16 manufacturing locations and 13 service centers, Safe Fleet continues to innovate and deliver the smart safety solutions that fleets need to survive and thrive in a changing world – and help ensure that drivers, passengers, and everyone around them arrive home safely. Safe Fleet is driving safety forward for today’s and tomorrow’s fleets. For more information, visit www.safefleet.net.
About Clarience Technologies
Clarience Technologies is a global leader of visibility and safety technologies for transportation. Born from a collection of premium brands each with a long track record of innovation, its solutions include vehicle lighting, camera and vision systems, telematics and safety solutions that protect our world and our livelihoods by keeping people, assets and businesses safe, secure and productive. www.clariencetechnologies.com.
