$230M/home/webapps/asp_fr/data/asp/publications/aristophane_1/templates/ra2020_ardian_gb_81075 The largest interior FY 2020 revenue employees years in construction company in the in 20 branches operation South East and one of the largest throughout (founded in the United States the South East US in 1946) The company started out focusing on acoustical well during Covid. There have been some delays to ceilings but has evolved to do a wide range of our projects, but they’ve been less serious than in interiors finishes including drywall, flooring, and other parts of the country. architectural specialties. Our focus is on mid- size commercial projects, from retail, corporate, TW: We think there’s a big growth opportunity for educational, healthcare to larger projects that Acousti. We haven’t ruled out doing acquisitions but include airports, sports facilities, and casinos. As we’re already the largest in the region so there aren’t we have always enjoyed a great reputation in the many other multi-site operations to look at. But there industry, which would allow for growth, there hasn’t are plenty of opportunities to expand into a city with been a lot of strategic direction or management our own people and recruit talent locally. Or we attention from corporate in recent years, so our could look at accelerating the growth by buying in branches have operated pretty independently an established local team and their customer list. and were not challenged to grow. The executives who retired in connection with the transaction had RK: And moving forward, there’s a lot of growth in gotten complacent. The current management team this part of the US as a lot of people are moving is bringing a renewed sense of urgency, which has here from other parts of the country because of the the next generation of leaders in our branches really ability to work from home. Many sectors we serve, excited about the future of the company. like education and transportation, are driven by population growth. So as people move to the south- KK: We were convinced that by creating an exit east, that’s going to drive demand in some of our for the family owners and promoting Randy and most important end-markets. the next generation of management, we could really accelerate Acousti’s growth over the next few KK: Acousti is a great example of the sort of years. The new team all have a lot more enthusiasm transaction we look for. It was a more complex about managing the business more intensively and situation than some investors want to take on making sure all the branches are working closely because we had to create an exit for the family and offering a consistent suite of services. owners and transition to a new management team. The complexity was certainly compounded by Todd Welsch: This is a strong, well-established the outbreak of Covid-19, causing disruption in business and we’re confident that working with the debt markets and economic uncertainty, and the new management team we can take it to the just generally increasing the difficulty of getting a next level. deal done with travel restrictions and the like. But we could see a great opportunity waiting on the RK:The big opportunity we see is to expand other side of the management transition. We’re outside our current geographical footprint. Although quite confident that we will find that the challenge Covid-19 has closed construction sites in other parts in getting the deal done was well worth it, given the of the country, we’re in a region where construction vast opportunities to reinvigorate the growth of this was allowed to continue, and we have done very business and add some strategic direction. 2020 ACTIVITY REPORT 83