Shred-it International
Shred-it International is the global leader in the document destruction industry, with more than 150,000 customers around the world. In 2008, the management team was in transition and the owners began a process to sell the business to resolve a pressing debt situation.
The document destruction industry was growing at double digits and Shred-it had a dominant market position, providing significant scale advantage in a fixed-route logistics business.
Birch Hill was selected as the preferred equity partner due to the owner’s comfort with our principles and preference for a Canadian partner who understood that capital is only part of what it takes to succeed. We understood the human aspect of running the business and the need for leadership development.
The owners retained a 10% stake on the advice of Birch Hill, and subsequent to its investment, Birch Hill hired a new CEO and supported the restructuring of Shred-it’s senior management team.
ROI – With the new management team in place, earnings grew 3.5 times over six years, and the company experienced rapid growth, both by acquisition and organically, through an improved sales and marketing program. Birch Hill exited in 2015.
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