New York, New York — Granite Comfort (Granite), which provides essential services such as HVAC and plumbing infrastructure to residential customers in six states, announced that it has entered into a new asset-backed credit facility with East-West Bank, the publicly traded full service commercial bank headquartered in Pasadena, California. This facility will support the continued rollout of Granite’s EASE Comfortâ product, which allows homeowners to replace their residential HVAC systems with no upfront cost as part of a long-term, recurring revenue contract.
Alex Black, CEO of Granite, said, “Granite has been a first mover in introducing our ‘HVAC infrastructure-as-a-Service’ product, EASE Comfort, into a highly fragmented market. Through our unique model for delivering this essential residential infrastructure, our customers enjoy our affordable, convenient, high-quality and environmentally efficient service and the new facility provides an attractive cost of capital that will accelerate our penetration rates.”
Black continued, “Our strategy has involved acquiring successful businesses with powerful local brands in attractive markets — more than 20 to date — and building on their success by maintaining their core competencies while both institutionalizing their processes. The success of our ‘always covered, always comfortable’ offering demonstrates that homeowners value the opportunity to avoid high upfront costs, and eliminate any surprise bills for repairs or replacement.”
Marc Blair, COO and Senior Managing Director of Tiger Infrastructure Partners, the majority investor in Granite stated, “This new credit facility is another important milestone in Granite’s performance to date. Granite has made substantial investments in processes, systems and human capital in order to be able to create this highly efficient asset-based lending structure.”
Blair continued, “Tiger’s investment thesis has been to leverage CEO Alex Black’s longstanding experience and our own expertise to consolidate leading franchises in the sector — while concurrently introducing the EASE Comfort product to create contracted, recurring revenues. The same stable, recession-resistant demand that Tiger identified in the ‘residential infrastructure’ sector, has been further validated by other, mega cap infrastructure institutions, who have also made investments in this essential infrastructure segment.”
Mr. Black added, “In addition to this achievement, in the past year, Granite has added key professionals at all levels and harmonized its internal operating systems, including its ERP and data systems to enhance the efficiency of its operations. We are using state-of-the art digital and AI technologies to reach our target markets, train our employees and monitor our KPIs. These actions differentiate our business model and provide our customers with ‘best-in-class’ offerings.”
Stephens Inc. acted as Exclusive Financial Advisor and Foley & Lardner LLP served as legal counsel to Granite on the credit facility.
Granite was founded in 2019 with an initial investment from Tiger Infrastructure Partners, an innovative private equity firm focused on providing transformational growth capital to middle market infrastructure companies.
