One of the industry’s fastest-growing and best-known brands with a knack for deploying seamless tech-driven business systems, Reborn Cabinets of Anaheim, California, has been acquired by Renovo Home Partners, a Dallas-based holding company that has quickly become one of the top five companies in home improvement.
With backing and deep experience from Boston-based private equity firm Audax, Renovo has acquired five other big-name, regional home improvement firms since last November—Dreamstyle Remodeling, Alure Home Improvements, Remodel USA, Woodbridge and NEWPRO. With Reborn, it adds a West Coast powerhouse and sets the stage for further growth on a coast-to-coast platform.
John Dupuy, CEO of Renovo, said Reborn not only brings its very strong regional presence to Renovo, it also comes with manufacturing and retail expertise in cabinet refacing, a product category with big-upside growth potential in many areas of the country. Additionally, Reborn comes with close ties to Costco, the national warehouse-club chain and its mature and successful in-store lead-generation partnership, which Renovo hopes to expand nationwide, Dupuy said.
“We believe in regional brands,” said Dupuy, who comes to the home improvement industry with a long track record of executing buy-and-build strategies on behalf of private equity backers. “Renovo is not a direct-to-consumer brand. We go to market as Woodbridge and Reborn, etc. Those are direct-to-consumer brands, and we keep management teams in place and we invest in them. We bring it together in this partnership approach where they share best practices. We look at sales practices, people, and learn from each other. We don’t dictate how a company does its sales in its region with its products. We know it can be very different from one part of the country to another from one product category to another. We do bring what we think is the best of being by yourself, autonomy and being a part of something very large.”
Dupuy said Renovo is not done buying firms even as it plans to achieve strong organic growth in 2022. It is still looking to add more companies to its portfolio despite current economic complexities and a higher cost of money.
Truly Reborn
Grown and operated by brothers Vince and Anthony Nardo, Reborn Cabinets has been a home improvement force in Southern California for more than three decades, beginning in 1983 when their parents Vinny and Brenda moved to Anaheim to launch the business. In recent years the firm has added several wholly owned branches throughout California and into Nevada and Arizona. In 2021, the firm completed more than 6,300 jobs and billed more than $90 million in installed revenue. In 2021, the company ranked No. 35 on Qualified Remodeler’s annual TOP 500 list of largest remodeling and home improvement firms.
The transaction was private, and terms of the deal were not disclosed; but there is reason to believe that the firm traded for a premium given its size and complementary operations. In recent years, private equity firms have been known to offer between five- and eight-times gross profit (or earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation, EBITDA).
Vince Nardo said he will remain CEO of the company and Anthony Nardo will stay on as CFO, roles they’ve each held for many years. The decision to proceed with the sale to Renovo was based partly on timing and partly on the right fit, Vince said. Audax is well known for its buy-and-build philosophy, and the brothers saw the transaction as an opportunity to grow Reborn more quickly under the Renovo umbrella.
“A few years ago, our goal was to remain independent and build everything under the Reborn brand,” Vince said. “And when private equity really started coming into the industry over the past two years, we then looked at the business and said, if we can find the right strategic partner it might make sense to sell. And after looking at the group of companies that Renovo has started to put together, we conducted our research and saw an ability for us to partner with the right company and really fast-forward our growth with partners that shared our vision. While there’s always a hesitation to do something like that, to lose control, we looked at it differently. We see that they’re going to help us get to a place that would have taken us forever to do by ourselves. At that point, we were willing to take that jump.”
In 2019, the Nardos purchased their parents stake in the company, in order to “de-risk” them in their retirement years. Vince and Anthony Nardo both retain stakes in Renovo. Vince’s son Seth, son-in-law West, and Anthony’s son Caleb will also stay with the company.
“If you go back to the 80s when they started the business, it was never intended to be what it is today,” Vince said. “It was always just going to be a company my dad would run. He had found that he’d be better off working for himself and have a small little cabinet company. I don’t even think they ever really planned on Anthony or myself working here. And just knowing them, you know, I think they’re in awe. I can’t speak for them. But they’re in awe that we were able to, as a family, take this thing from nothing to over $100 million dollars.” QR
Renovo | Audax Acquisitions
Dreamstyle Remodeling – January 31, 2022
Alure Home Improvements – January 31, 2022
Remodel USA – January 31, 2022
NEWPRO Home Solutions – June 1, 2022
Woodbridge Home – June 4, 2022
Reborn Cabinets – July 5, 2022
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