Pittsburgh, PA – August 2, 2023: Tail End Capital Partners (“Tail End”) completed a GP-led secondary investment into an oversubscribed continuation vehicle (“CV”) managed by Frontenac, a Chicago-based private equity firm focused on investing in lower middle market buyout transactions in the consumer, industrial, and services industries. The CV’s objective was to realize liquidity for Frontenac’s investment in Motion & Control Enterprises (“MCE”) while providing additional capital to support MCE’s future growth.

MCE is a leading industrial distributor and services provider of highly engineered, full lifecycle technical fluid power, automation, and flow control solutions serving more than 23,000 MRO and OEM customers from 39 facilities across 13 states. Frontenac acquired MCE in 2018 in partnership with its CEO, Charley Hale. Mr. Hale worked with Frontenac as part of their CEO1ST executive-centric approach to sourcing opportunities. Together, Frontenac and Mr. Hale have completed 10 acquisitions and grown EBITDA by more than 15x. The CV provides MCE with the resources to accelerate organic growth initiatives and pursue additional acquisition opportunities.

“Frontenac has been a trusted partner from the beginning, and they’ve supported our organic and acquisition-based growth.  We’ve transformed MCE into a company that was recognized in 2023 by Modern Distribution Management on its Top Industrial Distributors list. This additional investment allows us to extend our partnership with Frontenac as we continue to scale our company,” said Mr. Hale.

Tail End is excited to participate in this transaction with the world class management team at MCE and Frontenac, a blue-chip GP with a 50+ year track record working with over 300 owners of mid-sized businesses. The CV will allow more time and investment capital to maximize MCE’s value for all stakeholders.