ServiceMaster Brands is an American

privately held company A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

owned by

Roark Capital Group Roark Capital Group is an American private equity firm with over $33 billion in assets under management. The firm is focused on leveraged buyout investments in middle-market companies, primarily in the franchise/multi-location, restaurant and fo ...

that provides residential and commercial services. Its headquarters are located in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, after moving there in 2020 from

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

. Brands operated by ServiceMaster include ServiceMaster Clean, ServiceMaster Restore, Merry Maids,

AmeriSpec ServiceMaster Brands is an American privately held company owned by Roark Capital Group that provides residential and commercial services. Its headquarters are located in Atlanta, Georgia, after moving there in 2020 from Memphis, Tennessee. Br ...

, Furniture Medic, Two Men and a Truck, Indoor Science and Aftermath Services. The core services of the company are disaster response and restoration, janitorial services, professional home cleaning, furniture repair and home inspections. ServiceMaster has more than 7,000 company-owned and franchise locations around the world. It has 13,000 corporate employees and a franchise network that independently employs over 33,000 additional people. In 2007, the company had approximately 5,500 locations.

History

ServiceMaster was founded in 1929 by Marion E. Wade, a minor league baseball player, as a

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

-proofing company in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

. It was incorporated in 1947 and expanded to franchised carpet cleaning in 1952. Its movement into business services makes it a large

outsourcing Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...

company. In the 1980s, the company acquired several branch and franchise-based service companies including

Terminix Terminix International Company, L.P. is one of the largest pest control companies in the world, operating in 47 states in the United States and 22 countries around the world. It is a subsidiary of England-based Rentokil Initial. History In 1927, ...

, TruGreen, Merry Maids, and

American Home Shield American Home Shield Corporation is an American home warranty company based in Memphis, Tennessee. It administers home warranty contracts on major home systems and appliances. Overview American Home Shield was founded in 1971 and operated in ...

. In 2001, ServiceMaster divested its management services businesses to focus more on its residential and commercial business. A group of equity sponsors led by

Clayton, Dubilier & Rice Clayton, Dubilier & Rice is an American private equity company. It is one of the oldest private equity investment firms in the world. Founded in 1978, CD&R has managed the investment of more than $30 billion in approximately 90 businesses, repre ...

(CD&R) acquired ServiceMaster in July 2007 and took the company private. In the same year, the company moved its headquarters from Downers Grove, Ill., to Memphis, Tenn. In 2011, Hank Mullany, former executive vice president of Walmart U.S. and president of northern U.S. Walmart, was appointed as CEO for all ServiceMaster brands. Robert J. Gillette was appointed chief executive officer in June 2013. As of January 1, 2014, TruGreen is no longer a brand of ServiceMaster, opting instead to remain a privately held company. TruGreen acquired Scotts Lawn Service in 2016. ServiceMaster Global Holdings, Inc., then the parent of ServiceMaster Brands, announced on June 25, 2014, that it had priced an initial public offering of 35,900,000 shares of common stock at $17.00 per share. The shares began trading on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...

on June 25, 2014, under the ticker symbol SERV. The company continues to be majority-owned by private equity firms Clayton, Dubilier & Rice,

StepStone Group StepStone Group LP (StepStone) is a global private markets firm providing customized investment, portfolio monitoring and advice to investors. StepStone covers primary fund investments, secondary fund investments and co-investments across priva ...

and

Ridgemont Equity Partners Ridgemont Equity Partners is a private equity firm focused on making investments in middle-market companies in the U.S. within certain industries such as basic industrial, energy, healthcare, telecommunications, media and technology. The firm fo ...

, and

JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the ...

Funding. ServiceMaster moved its global headquarters from

East Memphis East Memphis is a region of Memphis, Tennessee with several defined and informal subdivisions and neighborhoods such as Colonial Acres, White Station- Yates, Sherwood Forest, Normal Station, High Point Terrace, Belle Meade, Normandy Meadows, St ...

to Peabody Place in

Downtown Memphis Downtown Memphis, Tennessee is the central business district of Memphis, Tennessee and is located along the Mississippi River between Interstate 40 to the north, Interstate 55 to the south and I-240 to the east, where it abuts Midtown Memphis. It ...

in June 2018. Nikhil Varty was appointed chief executive officer in July 2017. On July 26, 2017, ServiceMaster Global Holdings, Inc. announced a plan to spin-off its American Home Shield business from its Terminix and Franchise Services Group into a separate publicly-traded company. In October 2020,

purchased ServiceMaster Brands. In August 2021, ServiceMaster Brands purchased Two Men and a Truck, a family-owned moving franchise. In April 2022, ServiceMaster Brands purchased Aftermath Services, a privately owned trauma & biohazard cleanup company.

Brands

* ServiceMaster Clean (established 1952): Janitorial and carpet cleaning *

(founded 1927, acquired 1986, separation 2020): pest control; divested from Terminix Global holdings October 2020 * Merry Maids (acquired 1988): maid services *

(acquired 1989); spun off in 2018 * Furniture Medic (acquired 1996): furniture repair * Rescue Industries and American Residential Services, now known as ARS/Rescue Rooter: RI acquired in 1998; ARS acquired and merged with RI 1999; sold 2006 * ServiceMaster Restore (established 2013): disaster restoration * AmeriSpec (acquired 2007): home inspection * Two Men and a Truck (acquired 2021) * Aftermath Services (established 1996, acquired 2022): trauma & biohazard cleaning * Indoor Science (acquired 2022) Amerispec is a

franchisor Franchising is based on a marketing concept which can be adopted by an organization as a strategy for business expansion. Where implemented, a franchisor licenses some or all of its know-how, procedures, intellectual property, use of its busine ...

which sells and supports residential and commercial inspection services franchisees throughout the United States and Canada. The company's main services are general home inspection, relocation inspections and commercial property inspections. AmeriSpec has around 300 independently owned and operated franchises in the United States and Canada.

AmeriSpec History

*1987 - AmeriSpec incorporated in Orange County, California *1988 – begins to provide home inspection franchises. Since its inception, the company has conducted in excess of 2 million quality home inspections. *Jan. 2007 – After previously being a wholly owned subsidiary of American Home Shield, the company was sold to the ServiceMaster Holding Company and was placed under the leadership of the other ServiceMaster Brands.

References

AmeriSpec sources

* * *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Servicemaster Business services companies of the United States Companies based in Atlanta Business services companies established in 1929 Franchises 1929 establishments in Illinois