Ardurra Group — Littlejohn is dressing it for sale

Littlejohn & Co bought Ardurra Group in February 2023 from Round Table Capital and Pine Street Capital. Through March 4, 2026 they closed five add-ons in nine months; in the ten weeks since, the platform has been quiet. That five-then-stop cadence is not platform-building anymore. It is exit prep, and it tracks Littlejohn's HydroChemPSC playbook before the $1.25B sale to Clean Harbors in 2024.

Seller

• Company: Ardurra Group
• HQ: Miami, FL (founded 1931 in Tampa)
• Sector: Multi-discipline civil engineering services — water/wastewater, transportation, aviation, structural, surveying, environmental
• Headcount: ~2,600 employees, 80+ offices across the US
• CEO: Ernesto Aguilar, PE (President & CEO since 2021)
• CFO: Randy Dumas
• Chief Growth Officer: Kart Vaith
• Director of M&A: Clark Holt (the literal corp-dev contact, on payroll for sourcing add-ons)
• End markets: municipal water utilities, state DOTs, federal aviation/defense, private developers
• Implied size band: est. ~$500–650M revenue (2,600 EE × ~$200–250K rev/EE typical for engineering-services), EBITDA ~$60–90M; enterprise value at exit plausibly $800M–$1.2B at 13–15x EBITDA strategic-buyer multiples

Holding PE firm

• Firm: Littlejohn & Co (Greenwich, CT)
• Acquired: February 1, 2023 → 3.3-year hold as of May 2026
• Transaction: Buyout from Round Table Capital Partners + Pine Street Capital Partners
• Deal sponsor: Michael Kaplan, Managing Director (named in five independent sources on the Round Table sale)
• Hold-period band: 3.3 yrs is just outside the 4–7 yr sweet spot, but the add-on velocity is the louder signal

Fund-level signals supporting near-term exit

1. Five add-ons in trailing nine months. Remington & Vernick (March 4, 2026), MKN (Nov 17, 2025), Perteet (Sept 15, 2025), J.R. Wauford (Sept 2, 2025), Janus Research (June 17, 2025). That tempo across the same nine-month window is a dressing-the-asset cadence, not a build cadence.
2. Total external capital raised reported at $181M. Most of it deployed via the M&A program now visibly accelerating into 2026.
3. Littlejohn has the HPC playbook. Same firm exited HydroChemPSC to Clean Harbors at $1.25B in 2024 after a comparable add-on tempo. The pattern repeats.

Active buyers in engineering services

The deal will price off engineering-services strategic acquirers and one sponsor-backed roll-up. The buyer set has consolidated since Q1 — TIC Solutions absorbed NV5 Global into the same Consulting Engineering segment that already housed Acuren, and the combined platform's first Investor Day (May 19, 2026) frames the next civil-engineering question for that envelope. Five names remain in the plausible-buyer set:

• TIC Solutions / NV5 / Acuren (NYSE: TIC). Now the consolidated Consulting Engineering platform — TIC Q1 2026 disclosed $187.3M of segment revenue from the NV5 absorption alone, with the May 19 Investor Day the next forward catalyst on stated M&A pipeline.
• Bowman Consulting (NASDAQ: BWMN). Public roll-up vehicle in civil engineering, has been buying steadily through 2024–2026.
• Stantec (NYSE: STN). Larger Canadian platform; absorbs water/transportation books at higher multiples than the US peers.
• AECOM (NYSE: ACM). Global infra services; has historically picked up specialty civil platforms that fit alongside its government-services book.
• Verdantas (Sterling Investment Partners portfolio). Sponsor-to-sponsor route — Verdantas has been the most active LMM-PE-backed engineering roller; a Verdantas/Ardurra combination would create a top-tier water-and-civil platform at scale.

The strategics (TIC, Bowman, Stantec, AECOM) clear at higher EBITDA multiples than the sponsors. A competitive auction reads strategic top-of-process with Verdantas covering a sponsor-to-sponsor floor.

Key comparable transaction

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

Same seller (Littlejohn), same playbook (run a tight nine-to-eighteen-month add-on tempo, then sell), comparable size band. Confirms Littlejohn's preference for the two-step pattern — build through bolt-ons, then exit.

What to watch next

If Houlihan Lokey, William Blair, Harris Williams or Lincoln International is named as sell-side advisor on Ardurra in the next two quarters, the auction is on. A second add-on after Remington & Vernick in the same trailing-twelve-month window would extend the build phase and push exit timing into late 2026 or 2027. The TIC Solutions Investor Day on May 19, 2026 is the nearest dated buyer-side signal — any explicit mention of consulting-engineering M&A appetite from the combined Acuren+NV5 envelope is the most direct competitive read into a 2026 process. A new Head of M&A or VP Corp Dev hire at TIC, Bowman, or Stantec — each of whom would be staffing for an Ardurra-sized acquisition — is the parallel forward-looking buyer-side signal.