Buyer Dossier: Leonard Green & Partners

Buyer Profile

Firm Type

Large-Cap / Growth Investment Firm

Headquarters

Los Angeles, CA

Committed Capital

>$60B

Notable Recent Deal

Mister Car Wash take-private — $3.1B (29% premium)

Investment Focus

Consumer, Healthcare, Business Services, Industrial

Hold Strategy

Continuation funds — patient, multi-year hold capability

Sector Bias

Recurring revenue, defensible market position, fragmented industries

Website

leonardgreen.com

Key Contacts

Name	Title	Coverage	Email
John Baumer	Managing Partner	Industrial & services platforms	—
Jonathan Sokoloff	Managing Partner	Consumer, services M&A	—
Origination / BD Team	Principal / VP	Platform sourcing, new sectors	—

Strategic Fit

Leonard Green & Partners pursues businesses with recurring revenue, essential service characteristics, and fragmented markets amenable to consolidation. Water treatment services scores on all three criteria simultaneously. AquaScience's Wyoming operations serve energy, mining, municipal, and agricultural customers under ongoing contracts — essential services that generate non-discretionary, regulation-driven demand.

LGP's experience with distributed service businesses (Mister Car Wash, 400+ locations) is directly applicable to water treatment operations management. Running a geographically dispersed network of customer-facing service operations is the same management challenge at its core — local execution, centralized procurement, and brand consistency. LGP has the operational infrastructure to support this model at scale.

The continuation fund capability is particularly relevant. Building a water treatment platform through add-on acquisitions takes time — typically 5 to 10 years to achieve meaningful scale for an attractive exit to a strategic buyer like Xylem, Veolia, or a larger industry consolidator. LGP's demonstrated ability to hold assets beyond typical fund timelines provides the patient capital that this thesis requires.

Approach Strategy

Call Opener: "You've built distributed service businesses before — car washes, healthcare services, retail. Water treatment runs on the same operating model: local delivery, recurring contracts, fragmented market. We have the platform seed in Wyoming. LGP's capital and operational expertise would be the catalyst for a Mountain West consolidation play."

1

Recurring revenue, essential services — the LGP thesis in water. AquaScience's customers are energy producers, miners, municipalities, and farmers. They don't stop treating water when the economy softens — they have to, by regulation and operational necessity. This is the durable cash flow profile LGP's fund investors expect.

2

The buy-and-build playbook maps perfectly. The Mountain West water treatment market is fragmented — dozens of independent operators with no dominant platform. AquaScience is the Wyoming anchor. LGP's capital and M&A infrastructure supports a multi-year add-on acquisition strategy that builds a regional water treatment company worth 10x+ the entry price.

3

Exit to a strategic buyer is well-defined. Global water companies — Xylem, Veolia, Suez, Aecom — are active acquirers of U.S. regional water treatment platforms. A 5- to 7-year hold with systematic add-ons creates exactly the scale and geographic footprint that commands a premium from a strategic acquirer, matching LGP's proven value creation model.

Pipeline History

Date	Activity	Contact	Outcome	Status
—	Initial Research & Profile Build	Internal	Dossier compiled	Complete
—	First Outreach	Larry Casey	Pending	Next Step