LYNX Franchising Partners with Outdoor Living Brands to Diversify Offerings

LYNX to expand their offerings beyond commercial services into residential home services

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ATLANTASept. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- LYNX Franchising, a multi-brand franchise platform with a complementary collection of B2B essential services, recently announced that they have partnered with Outdoor Living Brands, a leading franchisor in the outdoor residential services sector. LYNX Franchising is a portfolio company of MidOcean Partners, a leading private equity firm with an excellent track record investing in successful, growth-focused franchise businesses. The investment in Outdoor Living Brands is a formational element of a diversification strategy by LYNX to expand their offerings beyond commercial services into residential home services.

"We are thrilled to invest in Outdoor Living Brands, as it is a leading franchise company with an excellent track record investing in successful residential services businesses," said LYNX Franchising CEO Russ Reynolds. "Outdoor Living Brands will serve as the residential home services platform and leadership team within the LYNX organization, expanding our offerings and providing a foundation upon which to add additional residential services to our portfolio."  

LYNX operates three leading franchise systems that provide commercial services including JAN-PROFRSTeam, and Intelligent Office. JAN-PRO is a commercial cleaning franchise system and one of the world's largest players in that sector. Intelligent Office offers professionally staffed, office space and services for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and corporate clients. FRSTeam provides restoration of fabrics, electronics and household contents, helping families and businesses recover from disasters such as smoke, fire, water, and mold. Collectively, these three brands have grown to nearly $700M in system revenues with franchisees across the United StatesCanada and a growing number of international markets.

"We are excited about what this partnership means for our future. Our primary mission will be to continue to drive the strong growth of the ArchadeckOutdoor Lighting Perspectives, and Conserva Irrigation franchise systems," said Outdoor Living Brands CEO, Chris Grandpre. "In addition, Outdoor Living Brands will continue to look for opportunities to develop and incubate new franchise concepts in a 'greenfield' approach as we have accomplished with Mosquito Squad and Conserva Irrigation. In addition, together with LYNX and MidOcean, we are already exploring acquisition opportunities that align with our strategic focus on home services. We appreciate having Boxwood Partners advise us through this process to help position Outdoor Living Brands for continued growth as part of the LYNX organization."

Chris Grandpre will step out of the CEO role to join the LYNX Franchising board of directors. Scott Zide, President and COO of Outdoor Living Brands, will continue to lead the brands in partnership with the LYNX executive team. Zide has been a key part of every strategic decision that Outdoor Living Brands has made since the company was formed in 2008 and as a former franchisee, he has made it a priority to bring the voice of the franchisee into every decision. 

"We are thrilled to be joining the LYNX Franchising team and are confident that our combined experiences in franchising will help us support the continued growth and success of our existing franchisees, as well as create new opportunities for Outdoor Living Brands to invest in additional residential services franchise concepts," said Zide.

Eric Roth, Managing Director at MidOcean Partners, commented that, “We are very excited to partner with the experienced management team at Outdoor Living Brands to expand into residential, continue to build out our service offerings, and further scale LYNX Franchising. All three brands are quality franchise concepts that continue to demonstrate strong momentum in the market. We look forward to helping drive this next phase of growth at LYNX with Outdoor Living Brands as our foundational residential platform with which to build upon going forward.”

Together, LYNX Franchising and Outdoor Living Brands' mission is to help people realize their dreams of business ownership through service industry franchising. The company is committed to continually innovating a reliable, best in class mentoring, and support framework to help its franchises and associates grow and prosper. The company is dedicated to providing its franchises a professional environment of integrity, trust, and mutual respect that nurtures strong, lasting, and mutual relationships within its network of owners and associates.

About Outdoor Living Brands
Outdoor Living Brands is the market-leading franchisor of premium residential and commercial outdoor living services with three established national brands including, Archadeck, Outdoor Lighting Perspectives and Conserva Irrigation. The company's core franchise service offerings focus on designing and building outdoor living environments, providing architectural landscape lighting and holiday lighting services, and offering water-efficient irrigation system design, installation, repair and maintenance services. Each of its businesses are positioned within growing, non-fad industries where the service needs to be performed locally, protecting franchisees from the risk of the transaction moving online or offshore.

About MidOcean

MidOcean Partners is a premier New York-based alternative asset manager specializing in middle-market private equity, structured capital, and alternative credit investments. Since its inception in 2003, MidOcean Private Equity has targeted investments in high-quality middle-market companies in the consumer and business services sectors. MidOcean Credit Partners was launched in 2009 and currently manages a series of alternative credit strategies, collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), and customized separately managed accounts. For more information, please visit: https://www.midoceanpartners.com/