Independent sponsor · Charlotte, North Carolina
Sell the company. Keep your name on the trucks.
Standpipe Partners owns Pinemark Fire & Life Safety in Charlotte and is adding fire and life‑safety inspection, testing and service companies across the Southeast. When yours joins, it keeps its technicians, its name and its customers.
- Platform
- Pinemark Fire & Life Safety, acquired 2026
- Looking in
- NC · SC · GA · East Tennessee
- Teasers answered
- Within two business days
01Add-on criteria
What we look for, on one page.
For brokers and bankers. If a company fits most of this, send it. If it fits some of it, send it anyway with a line on what doesn’t, and we’ll tell you quickly whether it works.
- Work
- Inspection, testing and maintenance of sprinkler, fire alarm, extinguisher, kitchen hood, backflow and special hazard systems. Monitoring contracts are a plus.
- Geography
- North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and East Tennessee. Within a day’s drive of Charlotte.
- Customers
- Commercial, institutional and multifamily buildings on recurring contracts. No single customer above 15% of revenue.
- Ownership
- Founder or family owned. An owner who will stay one to three years in a role they choose, or a manager ready to run it.
- Structure
- Majority purchase. Owners can keep a share and own part of what Pinemark becomes.
We pass on
- Companies where new-construction installation is most of the revenue
- Residential alarm and security
- Markets outside the Southeast
- Turnarounds and distressed sales
Send a teaser or a CIM. A principal reads it and answers within two business days with a yes, a no, or our questions. We honor fee agreements and keep every conversation with the owner through you.
deals@standpipepartners.example02For owners
What happens to your people, your name and your customers.
Most owners we meet built their company over twenty or thirty years. These are the things they ask about before price. We put our answers in the letter of intent.
- 2.1
Your technicians
They keep their pay, their trucks and their routes. Nobody is asked to move. We pay NICET test fees and give technicians paid study time, so the ones who want the next level can get it.
- 2.2
Your name
It stays on the trucks, the inspection tags and the invoices. Building owners and fire marshals know it. If you ever want it changed to Pinemark, that is your call.
- 2.3
Your customers
They keep their technician and their inspection calendar. The number on the sticker by the riser still rings in your office, and the same person answers it.
- 2.4
You
Stay one to three years in the job you want, or hand the day-to-day to a manager you trust. Keep a share of the company if you’d like to own part of what comes next.
Same truck, same lettering, the morning after closing
Pinemark is the company behind the companies. Its name goes on the paperwork your customers never see.
03The route
Where your company fits.
Pinemark works out of Charlotte and Greenville today. Each company that joins stays where it is, keeps its name, and widens the area a crew can reach within an hour. Pick your city to see what it would add.
Pinemark today
Charlotte and Greenville
I-85 · I-77 · I-26
Two branches on I-85, 52 technicians, and an hour’s reach that covers the Charlotte metro and the Upstate.
Quarterly, annual, five-year. NFPA 25 and NFPA 72 set the calendar, and the work comes due whether or not anyone is building.
Control valves and handwheels on a water main04The platform
Pinemark Fire & Life Safety.
A sprinkler fitter started Pinemark in Charlotte in 1991; his wife ran the office. We bought it from the family in 2026. Their son still runs operations, and he is the person your service manager will call.
- Founded
- 1991
- Technicians
- 52
- Service vehicles
- 38
- Buildings on contract
- 2,900
- Licensed
- NC · SC
- Branches
- Charlotte, Greenville
What a company gets when it joins
Normal- Zone 1
Scheduling and dispatch
Inspections booked from one calendar, with reminders sent to building owners before they come due.
- Zone 2
Deficiency quotes
Repair quotes out within two business days of the inspection report, so found work becomes billed work.
- Zone 3
Billing and payroll
Invoicing, collections, payroll and payables handled from Charlotte.
- Zone 4
Training
NICET fees and study time paid. A senior technician rides with new hires for their opening months.
- Zone 5
Insurance and bonding
The capacity to bid hospital, school district and state work.
- Zone 6
A deeper bench
A second crew for a five-year internal pipe inspection or a full panel replacement.
05How a sale goes
From a phone call to closing in about four months.
You set the pace. Some owners want to close this year; some want a year of conversations before a letter. Either is fine with us, and nothing below starts until you say so.
- 5.1Week 0
A call
Forty minutes with both principals. You tell us about the company. We don’t need financials yet.
- 5.2Weeks 1–3
A visit
We sign an NDA, come to your shop, and ride a route with one of your technicians if you’re comfortable with it.
- 5.3Weeks 3–6
Letter of intent
Two pages in plain English: price, structure, your role, and what happens to your people and your name.
- 5.460–90 days
Diligence
A quality-of-earnings review, licensing, insurance and your contract book. One request list, kept short.
- 5.5Closing
The next morning
Nothing changes on the trucks. Payroll runs on the same Friday. Your customers hear about it from you.
06Principals
Two principals. One from the trade, one from finance.
Grant Avery
Principal · Operations
Started as a sprinkler fitter’s apprentice in Greensboro. Spent fourteen years in fire protection service, the last six running the Carolinas for a national inspection company: eight branches and about 300 technicians.
NICET Level III in water-based systems. He leads site visits and works with each company’s manager after closing.
Nadia Whitlock
Principal · Transactions
Ten years in lower middle-market lending and M&A in Charlotte, most of it financing founder-owned service businesses in the trades.
She leads structure, diligence and lenders, and is the contact for brokers and for the family offices who invest with us.
We put our own money into every deal, alongside a small group of family offices. There is no fund and no deadline to sell.
07Capital
For family offices and lenders.
We raise equity one transaction at a time, from family offices we know, with senior debt from regional banks. Materials for a transaction are shared privately, under NDA, with parties we already have a relationship with.
Nothing on this site is an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security.
08Contact
Talk to a principal.
Owners
Thinking about selling
Write to Grant. He’ll call you back himself, usually the same week, and the conversation stays between us.
grant@standpipepartners.exampleBrokers and bankers
A company to show us
Send the teaser or CIM. A yes, a no, or our questions within two business days.
deals@standpipepartners.exampleFamily offices and lenders
Investing with us
Write to Nadia. Transaction materials are shared privately.
capital@standpipepartners.exampleConversations with owners are confidential. We don’t contact your employees, customers or vendors without your permission.