Morgan Stanley Capital Partners has bought environmental testing and compliance platform Alliance Technical Group from Align Capital Partners. Headquartered in Decatur, AL, Alliance is a provider of air quality testing and monitoring systems. MSCP is partnering with the current Alliance management team, led by CEO Chris LeMay.

“Alliance’s consistent above market organic growth, coupled with a customer-focused culture, are a testament to what the management team has built over the past 20 years, and has facilitated its widely-viewed reputation as the acquirer of choice in a highly fragmented industry,” said Eric Kanter, managing director and head of Industrials at MSCP.

Under ACP, Alliance completed 11 acquisitions, expanded into four new service lines and grew its revenue by more than 600 percent.  This enabled the company to expand from four locations in 2016 to more than 20 in 2021, while increasing headcount from less than 75 employees to over 750.    

This transaction marks the first exit for ACP since closing its inaugural fund in 2016.  Since then, ACP has completed 13 platform investments and 38 add-on acquisitions of growth-oriented business services, tech-enabled services and specialty manufacturing and distribution companies.  In addition to Alliance, ACP owns four other testing and compliance-oriented platforms, making the firm one of the most active lower middle market investors in the category. 

Piper Sandler & Co. acted as financial advisor to Alliance, and McGuireWoods LLP served as legal counsel to the company.  Proskauer Rose LLP served as legal counsel to MSCP.