Houston, Texas Private Equity Firm

sunbelt steel logo
Sunbelt Steel was a value-added distributor of steel round bar. Strong vendor relationships provided a competitive advantage to the company through access to unique alloy bar with limited production. Sunbelt processes included straightening, trepanning (drilling longitudinally to create heavy-wall tubular products), cutting to length and machining steel bar primarily for downhole drilling applications. While the Company sold some proprietary products, most sales were to tool manufacturers and machine shops for further manufacturing. Freestone exited this business in 2012.

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Freestone Partners, LLC announced today that Reliance Steel & Aluminum (NYSE:RS) has acquired all of the outstanding shares of its portfolio company, Sunbelt Steel Texas, LLC. Sunbelt, originally acquired by Freestone in partnership with management in April 2008, is a value-added distributor of alloy steel bar and heavy-wall tubing products to the oil and gas industry.

Sunbelt grew significantly during the four years that Freestone held its investment in the company, and the investment proved to be a great success for the firm’s limited partners. Mark Leyerle, a founder and Managing Director of Freestone as well as a board member of Sunbelt, commented, “it is very gratifying to have worked together with management to arrive at such a successful conclusion to this investment after having to navigate Sunbelt through some challenging times in the wake of the economic collapse in late 2008. Despite the headwinds experienced during the early years of this investment, it has proven to be one of our most successful transactions in the history of Freestone.”

Soon after the closing of the transaction, David H. Hannah, Chairman and CEO of Reliance said, “We are excited to add Sunbelt Steel Texas, LLC to the Reliance family of companies. Sunbelt increases our growing exposure to the energy market in high end, niche products serving customers across multiple oil and gas well drilling types, including vertical, horizontal, directional, and deepwater drilling applications. Sunbelt’s in-house processing services include deep hole drilling, straightening, and saw cutting with the ability to manufacture heavy-wall tubing from solid bar. We look forward to continuing Sunbelt’s growing presence in their specialty markets.” Quarton Partners of Birmingham, Michigan served as financial advisor to Freestone and Sunbelt in this transaction.