Three years after buying Interline Brands Inc. for $1.1 billion, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and P2 Capital Partners are selling the Jacksonville-based company for a half-billion-dollar profit.
The Home Depot Inc. announced an agreement Wednesday morning to buy Interline from the two private equity firms for $1.625 billion in cash.
Interline markets and distributes maintenance, repair and operations products throughout North America to professional contractors and maintenance workers.
The company, which goes back six decades in Jacksonville, employs about 700 people locally and 4,000 in total.
The company reported revenue of $412 million and operating income of $13.1 million in the first quarter this year. After interest and debt-related expenses, it recorded a final net loss of $3.8 million in the quarter.
Interline had been marketing its products through several different brand names, but in March it announced it was launching a single brand called SupplyWorks that would be used across the country.
Atlanta-based Home Depot says it is the world’s largest home improvement retailer with 2,270 retail stores and more than 300,000 employees. The company had sales of $83.2 billion in the last fiscal year.
The companies were giving few operational details about the deal Wednesday. Interline CEO Michael Grebe referred an inquiry to Home Depot’s corporate communications department.
Home Depot spokeswoman Paula Drake said the company intends to operate Interline as a subsidiary of Home Depot and the Interline executive team will remain in place.
But she said the companies were still formulating their integration plans and she could provide no other details.
Interline’s headquarters is at 701 San Marco Blvd. on the Southbank near the Acosta Bridge. The company’s ownership has changed hands several times over the last two decades, including two stints as a publicly traded company.
It was expected that Goldman Sachs and P2 would eventually look to profit off their investment, either through a sale of the business or perhaps another initial public offering.
According to Securities and Exchange Commission filings, funds affiliated with Goldman Sachs own 57 percent of the company and funds affiliated with P2 own 39 percent. The rest is owned by members of Interline management.
Interline’s roots trace to a Jacksonville business called Barnett Brass & Copper (which was not related to Barnett Banks Inc.) that opened in the 1950s.
It went public for the first time in 1996 under the name Barnett Inc. but was acquired by privately owned Wilmar Industries in 2000.
Wilmar, another distributor of plumbing, electrical and hardware supplies, moved its corporate headquarters from Moorestown, N.J., to Barnett’s Jacksonville offices after the merger.
The company was renamed Interline in 2001 and went public again in 2004. It remained publicly traded until the 2012 buyout by Goldman Sachs and P2.
Home Depot said it hopes to complete the acquisition in its third fiscal quarter, which ends Nov. 1, and it expects the deal to increase its earnings during the current fiscal year.