BrightView makes it official

BrightView officially went public today as company CEO Andrew Masterman rang the bell on the New York Stock Exchange.

The initial public offering of 21,300,000 shares of the company's common stock is priced at $22 per share raising $468.6 million. Shares of BrightView’s common stock began being traded today under the symbol “BV,” and the offering is expected to close on July 2.

BrightView CEO Andrew Masterman said the move is not only a positive for BrightView but for the industry as a whole.

“This provides a platform for everyone to look to and say this is absolutely and unquestionably a very big and prominent industry,” Masterman said. “If your aspiration is to be someone who runs a smaller organization, that’s great. If you have aspirations to be involved with a larger company, it all exists within the landscaping industry.”

While some would say going public puts more emphasis on the bottom line and not the customer, which may be a stain on the industry, Masterman said that won’t be the case.

“All of us in business, we are in it for several reasons; for one, we love the industry, we love being involved with our crews and we love making great landscapes out there," he said. "For those who have invested their own money to build their own enterprises or now in a public company like BrightView, we want to make some money. We are not misaligned. The only difference is now we have a vehicle where everyone can participate in BrightView’s growth and the industry's.”

BrightView will offer stock grants to crew supervisors who have been with the company at least 10 years and all salaried, exempt employees.

“You can start as a gardener and if you make it to a crew supervisor and have been there 10 years, you get that grant,” he said. “That starts today, so if you have been there 30 years, you get it now. It’s about engaging our leadership and that’s leadership at all levels.”

In the fall, all employees will be able to buy stock at a discounted rate.

BrightView has made a number of acquisitions, acquiring eight businesses with more than $188.2 million in total revenue since Jan. 1, 2017. Masterman said the company's approach to acquisitions won’t change after going public. He added he doesn’t have a set number of acquisitions in mind to make, he is instead just keeping an eye out for companies that make sense to acquire.

“There is abundant room for us to continue to grow into the market and we have a great competitive landscape where we have really good competition growing out there as well,” he said.

BrightView reported a revenue of $2.3 billion last year, making it the highest grossing landscape company in North America and No. 1 on Lawn & Landscape’s Top 100 list. The company, based in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, employs 22,000 people.

Formed in 2014 when KKR, parent company of Brickman, acquired ValleyCrest from Michael Dell’s MSD Capital, the combined companies rebranded as BrightView in 2016. MSD is still a minority shareholder of BrightView according to the SEC statement.