In a whirlwind seven-day acquisition, New Way Landscape & Tree Services in San Diego purchased Tierra Verde Landscape, a $4-million company in Huntington Beach, Calif.
After Tierra Verde’s owner, Allen Chariton died on July 24, who you can read about here, his wife wanted a quick sale, according to Randy Newhard, New Way’s owner. Newhard agreed to the deal on Aug. 22 and shut down Tierra Verde on Aug. 28. Newhard kept 30 of Tierra Verde’s 74 employees, and 35 of its approximately 137 maintenance jobs.
“We had a team of 12 New Way employees at their old office performing a job fair, inventorying equipment and trucks, changing names on trucks, and had a mobile lab there to do physicals, e-verify and administering drug tests,” Newhard said. “Potential employees were interviewed and were called on Sunday to start Monday. This deal all happened basically within a seven-day period. Acquisitions should usually take four to eight weeks.”
Newhard said he was attracted to the business because of its tree care services and its presence in Orange County.
“We have a book of business in Orange County and this acquisition added to that portfolio. Plus it added an immediate list of new management companies we could potentially do business with,” he said. “Plus, they had a tree division and they also performed arbor care work for all their maintenance acts. We have had a plan to expand our San Diego tree company into Orange County and this made an immediate impact for that expansion.”
This is the second acquisition Newhard made this year, acquiring a competitor’s book of business and employees in Inland Empire north of San Diego, earlier this year.
“We also had a book of business there and wanted to expand in that area,” he said.
Newhard said he is now looking at another deal in San Diego, which he plans to do a little slower than the Tierra Verde deal. He said the company will move to a new facility in October of this year.
“It has been a challenge to execute this all in a basically seven-day period. If not for my daughter Kathryn Dejong who is president and runs the operations, along with the rest of our staff who jumped in with both feet to get this up and running, I don’t know if we could have pulled it off. Actually, I know we could not have.”
New Way Landscape was number 88 on Lawn & Landscape’s 2015 Top 100 list with revenue of $17.5 million and 235 employees.
