Verdantas — Sterling is two years into a roll-up that paces 0.42 add-ons a month

Sterling Investment Partners IV bought Verdantas in May 2024 and has closed roughly ten add-ons in the twenty-four months since. Pace works out to 0.42 acquisitions a month — fast for a 2-year-old platform, but a quarter slower than what Littlejohn is currently running at Ardurra (0.56/mo over the trailing nine months). Sterling is in build mode, not exit prep, and the next four-to-six add-ons will set whether Verdantas ends up a sponsor-to-sponsor exit or a top-of-process strategic sale in 2027–2028.

Seller

• Company: Verdantas
• Sector: Multi-discipline environmental science, water resources, geotechnical, civil engineering, GIS
• Sub-sector: Environmental + civil engineering consulting roll-up
• Headcount band: est. ~1,800–2,200 employees post-PACE Engineers (Jan 2026)
• Implied revenue band: est. ~$350–500M (engineering services revenue/EE benchmark)
• CEO: RuthAnne Riha (since 2022)
• Chief Financial Officer: Mark Hardaway (appointed 2025)
• Chief Corporate Development Officer: Matt Henley
• End markets: state DOTs, municipal water utilities, federal environmental remediation, ESG-driven private clients

Holding PE firm

• Firm: Sterling Investment Partners (Westport, CT)
• Fund: Sterling Investment Partners IV (vintage 2022)
• Acquired: May 2024 → ~2-year hold as of May 2026
• Hold-period band: 2 years is build phase, not exit window. Sterling's pattern is 5-to-7 year holds with a heavy add-on cadence in years 2-4

Roll-up cadence — the actual data

Ten Sterling-era add-ons in twenty-four months puts the platform at 0.42 deals per month. Most-recent add-on: PACE Engineers Inc. (January 8, 2026) — a Pacific-Northwest civil and water engineering firm. Other 2024–2025 additions span environmental, GIS, and geotechnical sub-disciplines. The 2024 vintage of seven add-ons compressed into the first eight months of Sterling's ownership; 2025 slowed to two as the integration backlog grew; 2026 is opening with the PACE add and likely two-to-three more by year-end.

For comparison, Littlejohn at Ardurra is running 0.56 add-ons per month over the trailing nine months — five deals between June 2025 and March 2026. That platform is in dressing-the-asset cadence at a 3.3-year hold. Verdantas, at 2 years and 0.42/mo, is one cycle behind on the same playbook.

The cadence read sharpened in 2026. Verdantas has not closed an add-on since PACE Engineers on January 8 — four months of zero, against a 24-month average of one new platform every 10 weeks. The same four-month window saw Sterling close Fund V at $1.6B oversubscribed (November 20, 2025) and route Sterling Fund IV's Ubique Group into a continuation vehicle (November 2025). Sterling Fund IV holds Verdantas alongside AIMS, PROtect, Banner Industries, and Aurora Parts; with Fund V live and Ubique already structured for liquidity, Fund IV is in DPI mode. The roll-up pause reads as platform-stabilization ahead of process, not capital constraint.

Active acquirers in environmental + civil engineering services

The same buyer set that prices Ardurra would price Verdantas — strategic top-of-process at 13–15x EBITDA, sponsor-to-sponsor floor at 11–13x.

• NV5 Global (NASDAQ: NVEE). Multi-discipline acquirer; just merged with Acuren to form a combined $2B revenue TIC + engineering platform. Integration-mode, not platform-extension mode through 2026, but a 2027 Verdantas window aligns.
• Stantec (NYSE: STN). Canadian platform; absorbs water and environmental books at the highest multiples in the peer set.
• AECOM (NYSE: ACM). Global infra services; selective on specialty environmental platforms; would be a top-of-process bidder at scale.
• Bowman Consulting (NASDAQ: BWMN). Public roll-up vehicle; check size below Verdantas's likely range, but a competitive overhang on the auction.
• Apex Companies, LLC (Sentinel Capital portfolio). Sponsor-to-sponsor route; environmental remediation and water-resources platform with an active add-on program of its own.

Key comparable transaction

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

Different sponsor on both sides, but the same engineering-services roll-up category, comparable revenue band, and the same two-step pattern Sterling is now executing — build through bolt-ons, then exit. Confirms the price band a Verdantas process would clear.

What to watch next

The next two add-ons will signal whether Sterling is accelerating back toward 2024-vintage cadence (~0.7/mo) or settling at 2025's slower pace (~0.17/mo). Acceleration through Q3 2026 would push the exit window to late 2027 or early 2028. A new sub-sector head hire — particularly in geotechnical or transportation — would say Sterling is broadening the platform before exit rather than depth-selling the existing book. A Verdantas press release naming a sell-side advisor in 2027 (Houlihan Lokey, William Blair, Harris Williams, or Lincoln) is the auction-on signal.