Blackstone is betting on your local handyman

On February 17, 2026, Blackstone announced its determination to get Champions Group, a supplier of HVAC services, from Odyssey Investment Partners, LLC, successful a definitive agreement.

Leland Smith founded Champions Group successful 2000. They provide location services, including residential repair, aerial conditioning, heating, and HVAC.  The Champions radical  has 1,800 fields, technically, and 150,000 progressive members.

Though the presumption of the woody volition not beryllium disclosed until the archetypal fractional of 2026, Reports from Bloomberg and different industry insiders person valued it astatine astir $2.5 billion.

Given net of $140 million, the woody trades astatine 18.5x EBITDA, which is simply a precise precocious worth and precocious currency flow, particularly successful a recession.

Odyssey Investment Partners is making a ample number investment, signaling that it values the concern and the benefits of Blackstone’s ownership.

Think astir it. The location repair manufacture is simply a lucrative business. Someone is ever going to person their bath fixed oregon person heating issues successful the winter.

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The Blackstone Private Equity Strategies Fund (BXPE) is executing the Champions Group acquisition, which Blackstone's 10-K says is designed for "privately negotiated, equity-oriented investments" that volition leverage the firm's organization scale.

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Blackstone’s Perpetual Capital strategy crossed a ample AUM threshold astatine the extremity of 2025, truthful BXPE isn’t pressured to the forced-exit timelines that marque up accepted buyout funds.

Patient superior is required from the hundreds of section HVAC operators being rolled up, and Blackstone has the clip & incentives to fto compounding bash its thing.

Blackstone’s full AUM reached $1.3 trillion astatine the extremity of December 31, 2025, yet the much absorbing communicative is however Blackstone is deploying those numbers.

Within each the SaaS fears and AI craziness, Blackstone is ironically acting similar an underdog, betting connected “un-disruptable” labor. While you tin usage ChatGPT to inquire ‘how to hole a burst pipe,’ you cannot regenerate human labor.

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It tin beryllium seen arsenic astir a defense asset that has physical tangibility.

Champions Group has acquired brands similar McAfee Heating and Bee’s Plumbing, and Blackstone aims to people “local mom-and-pop” shops nether the Champions umbrella to scope a nationalist scale.