Origination

Imperial Dade is a specialty distributor of foodservice and janitorial sanitation products. The business was led by Robert and Jason Tillis, who built Imperial Dade into a leading East Coast-focused platform. Bain Capital identified Imperial Dade as a priority target a year before the company’s sale process, recognizing its strong foundation that we believe we could accelerate by investing in organic growth capabilities and M&A. In June 2019, we entered a partnership with the Tillis family and existing investors.

Opportunity and investment

Foodservice and janitorial sanitation distribution is an attractive, cycle-resilient market with secular growth tailwinds. We believe Imperial Dade could provide a better value proposition to customers, employees, and suppliers by continuing to scale the business and expanding its footprint across the U.S. We identified an opportunity to accelerate M&A further, invest in commercial and operational initiatives, and drive margin improvement.

Value creation

Partnering with Imperial Dade’s management team, we worked to execute a bold transformation strategy, resulting in significant growth:

• Organizational optimization: Strengthened leadership and capabilities by building regional teams with full P&L ownership, establishing a commercial excellence function, and investing in SG&A, including adding key executives and doubling the size of the salesforce.
• Operational expansion: Expanded Imperial Dade’s North American footprint and enhanced efficiency by opening six supersite facilities and optimizing the broader distribution network. Advanced sustainable initiatives to minimize the environmental impacts of its fleet and facilities, ensure the safety and well-being of its employees, and further engagement through expanding ownership across the employee base.
• Commercial excellence: Delivered transformative growth, building a national footprint and meaningfully scaling the business in three years through a combination of organic expansion and M&A.

Next Chapter

By 2022, Imperial Dade had executed on our initial investment thesis by scaling its footprint, building key capabilities, and accelerating M&A. Bain Capital sold a significant stake in Imperial Dade and reinvested in the business to partner with management in its next chapter of growth.

“We appreciate the support and partnership Bain Capital has provided as we have expanded our business and grown our network. The team and infrastructure has enabled us to move faster and provide differentiated service to our customers.”¹These endorsements are provided by certain CEOs and or founders of investments held by certain investment vehicles advised by Bain Capital affiliate investment advisers. None of these CEOs and or founders were directly compensated for providing these endorsements, however, the funds have made investments into such CEOs and or founders’ companies. As a result of this investment, a conflict of interest exists because the CEOs and or founders have an incentive to make positive statements about Bain Capital and their experiences with Bain Capital to maintain the goodwill with Bain Capital.

Jason Tillis / CEO / Imperial Dade

“When we invested in Imperial Dade three years ago, we had a shared vision with the Tillis Family that there was an enormous opportunity to build on the strong foundation they had created and to create an industry leader focused on best-in-class customer service. Under their leadership, Imperial Dade has become the preeminent platform in North America that quality, independent operators are proud to join.”

Ken Hanau / Partner/ Bain Capital