AIMS Companies — Sterling Investment Partners is overdue

Sterling Investment Partners has held AIMS Companies six years through Fund III. Fund V closed in November 2025; Fund III LPs have been pressing for DPI. The HydroChemPSC sale to Clean Harbors at $1.25B in 2024 is the comp the buyer side will price off. AIMS reads as the next industrial-services platform exit from the LMM cohort.

Seller

• Company: AIMS Companies
• HQ: Scottsdale, AZ
• Sector: Infrastructure inspection / industrial cleaning / specialty contractor
• Sub-sector: Municipal & utility pipeline inspection and cleaning; vacuum & hydroblast cleaning for plant maintenance; pipe rehabilitation
• Headcount: 600+ employees, 18 facilities (per AIMS website)
• Founder & CEO: Chris Mihaletos. Phoenix Business Journal 2021 ACE CEO of the Year; partnered with Sterling at the 2020 recap.
• End markets: municipal, utility, industrial, energy
• Implied size band: est. ~$200–350M revenue (600 EE × ~$400–500K/EE typical for industrial-services), EBITDA ~$30–60M; enterprise value at exit plausibly $400–800M at 10–14x EBITDA strategic-buyer multiples (HydroChemPSC sold at $1.25B to CLH on a much larger scale).

Holding PE firm

• Firm: Sterling Investment Partners (Westport, CT)
• Acquired: April 2020 → 6.0-year hold as of May 2026
• Fund: Sterling Investment Partners III (vintage ~2017–2018 by deal pacing; Fund IV closed Jan 2023 above target)
• Hold-period band: squarely in the 4–7 yr exit sweet spot; Fund III LPs pressing for DPI

Fund-level signals supporting near-term exit

1. Fund V close (Nov 2025, $1.6B). Sterling is no longer fee-extracting from Fund III; the firm has fresh dry powder and the LP base is rotating attention to the new vehicle.
2. XKIG single-asset continuation vehicle (Oct 2025, ~$500M+, co-led by HarbourVest, StepStone, ICONIQ). Sterling demonstrated willingness to recycle Fund III/IV assets via CVs to deliver liquidity. Pattern repeatable on AIMS.
3. Soldano quoted on "distribution and business services" exit strategy in the Fund IV close release. AIMS sits in the business-services bucket Soldano speaks for.

Active buyers in industrial services

The deal will price off the Clean Harbors / HydroChemPSC comp. The buyer side splits across five named strategics plus a sponsor floor.

Strategic shortlist:

• Clean Harbors (NYSE: CLH). Acquired HydroChemPSC from Littlejohn for $1.25B in 2024 — same sub-sector, same seller archetype. Q1 2026 print May 6 set a record at $1.46B revenue and the FY 2026 adjusted EBITDA guide raised to $1.24–1.30B. The FTC cleared CLH's Terra Nova Solutions acquisition on May 5, 2026 (20M-gal wastewater, 23M-tons solidification, five sites), second 2026 platform after DCI. EVP Corp Dev Brian Weber has led 85+ deals at Clean Harbors. Now regulatorily clear for the next $400–800M platform.
• Republic Services (NYSE: RSG). Vertically integrated waste & environmental-services strategic; active acquirer in environmental remediation and specialty industrial services. Head of M&A Ameet Rao identified at corporate (arao2@republicservices.com confirmed).
• GFL Environmental (NYSE: GFL). North American environmental and industrial roll-up; absorbed eight acquisitions in Q1 2026 (Frontier among the named tucks). Historically pays up for asset-heavy specialty contractors. Corp-dev bench: Kaitlyn Barry, Brandon Silverstein.
• Waste Management (NYSE: WM). Largest US environmental-services strategic; writing larger industrial-services tucks since the Stericycle close. Corp-dev mailbox unverifiable to date (anti-probe domain).
• Veolia North America. Pure-play water / wastewater services strategic; Abhishek Jain joined as SVP Corporate Development April 2025 to run the post-Suez NA inorganic build, 19 acquisitions on that mandate as of May 2026. Direct sub-sector match with AIMS's municipal-utility wastewater and pipe-rehab lane.
• Brand Industrial Services / HEICO. Active industrial-services holdco; long history of inspection / maintenance roll-ups. Plausible at AIMS's check size.

Sponsor floor (sponsor-to-sponsor outcomes likely if the strategic auction breaks):

• Apollo industrial-services platform. Apollo's flagship vehicle has been writing in the $400–800M EV band for industrial-services platforms since vintage 2018.
• KKR / Heritage Environmental Services. KKR's existing platform thesis is integration-of-specialty-contractors at this size.

The strategic field of five (CLH, RSG, GFL, WM, Veolia) clears at higher EBITDA multiples than the sponsors. The most likely auction outcome reads strategic top-of-process, sponsors covering the floor; the wider strategic field widens the underwriting band relative to the HPC comp.

Key comparable transaction

Clean Harbors → HydroChemPSC ("HPC"), $1.25B, 2024 (from Littlejohn & Co).

• Industrial cleaning, specialty maintenance, utilities services. Same sub-sector as AIMS.
• Same seller archetype (LMM PE in mid-cycle hold).
• Confirms Clean Harbors is willing to write a 9-figure check for a clean roll-up of this profile.

Cross-buyer leadership signals

• Veolia North America corp-dev hire (April 2025). Abhishek Jain promoted into the SVP Corporate Development seat to run NA inorganic growth — 19 acquisitions on that mandate to date. A new corp-dev hire at a strategic in the seller's sub-sector is a textbook process-readiness signal.
• Republic Services. Ameet Rao identified as the right M&A contact, mailbox locked.
• GFL Environmental. Two-deep corp-dev bench (Barry + Silverstein) plus Q1 2026 absorption of eight tucks — pace consistent with active-buyer status.

What to watch next

If Sterling files notice on a Fund III continuation vehicle for AIMS — they ran one for XKIG in October 2025, the pattern is repeatable — the auction track is dead and the CV track is live. If Clean Harbors books another industrial-services acquisition before Q3 2026, AIMS becomes their next-most-likely target. A new Head of Corporate Development or Head of M&A hire at AIMS itself (currently absent) would harden the read into a near-term call.