A newly formed packaged gas business has acquired a Southern California gas and welding supply distributor as its “initial investment,” company officials announced Tuesday.
Falcon Gases said that Encore Gas & Supply would be “the perfect foundational partnership” for the platform as it builds its business through both organic initiatives and acquisitions of “leading independent distributors.” Falcon, formed last year, says it is led by a team of industrial gas industry veterans; the company also announced Tuesday that private equity firm Odyssey Investment Partners has acquired a majority stake in the business.
Terms of both deals were not disclosed.
Encore, based in Long Beach, operates additional branches in Ontario and Valencia, along with a specialty and industrial gas facility in Signal Hill.
“As Encore enters its next phase of growth, we will continue with the core belief that has made us successful to date: invest in customers, people and assets, and the rest will take care of itself,” Encore President Ben Anderson said in a statement.
“These transactions create a strong foundation for Falcon to execute its strategy of becoming a high-growth, well-capitalized and large-scale independent packaged gas distribution platform,” said Falcon CEO Pete Jeffe. “We now have the ideal partners in place to build Falcon into a market leader.”
