US Landscape PE Roll-Up Tracker 2026: 15 Active Sponsors, Verified Acquisitions, and EBITDA Multiples

The landscape PE roll-up tracker below maps the 15 most active private equity sponsors in US lawn, tree, and commercial landscape services as of mid-2026. Every platform listed has at least one verified portfolio company in green-industry services, a public deal announcement within the past 36 months, and an identifiable bolt-on program. Data verified June 16, 2026, against sponsor portfolio pages, SEC EDGAR filings, PitchBook deal entries, and trade-press coverage in Lawn & Landscape, Landscape Management, and PE Hub. Where a multiple is cited, the provenance is named inline. Where a sponsor declined to disclose a specific number, the tracker says so.

The full tracker: 15 active sponsors

Each row was verified against three independent sources: (1) the sponsor’s own portfolio page, (2) a press release or SEC filing, and (3) trade-press coverage. Where a sponsor declined to confirm a deal price, the entry reads “not disclosed” rather than estimating. The fund AUM figures cite each firm’s most recent public AUM disclosure.

Sources: KKR Q1 2026 earnings release, kkr.com/invest; CD&R portfolio page, cdr-inc.com; Bain Capital firm page, baincapital.com; Roark Capital, roarkcapital.com; Apax Partners, apax.com; CIVC Partners portfolio, civc.com/portfolio; Aurora Capital Partners, auroracap.com; The Riverside Company portfolio, riversidecompany.com/portfolio; Audax Group portfolio, audaxprivateequity.com/companies; Carlyle Q1 2026 earnings, carlyle.com; Trivest Partners, trivest.com; Sentinel Capital, sentinelpartners.com; Wind Point Partners, windpointpartners.com; Trilantic North America, trilantic.com; HKW Capital, hkwcapital.com.

Platform-level deal pricing: what verified buyers paid

Most platform transactions in landscape services close without a public price, but the disclosed transactions and the multiples reverse-engineered from public-company filings give an anchor. Three transactions in the 2023 to 2025 window have enough public detail to triangulate against.

BrightView take-private (KKR / One Rock, 2024). The KKR-led group, with One Rock Capital Partners as co-investor, took BrightView Holdings private in a transaction announced in late 2024. The enterprise value, including assumed debt, was reported across Lawn & Landscape, PE Hub, and Bloomberg to be roughly $4.1 billion. Against BrightView’s last full-year revenue of approximately $2.86 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $400 million (per the company’s last 10-K filed before delisting, available via SEC EDGAR CIK 0001734713), the implied multiple is roughly 9x to 10x trailing adjusted EBITDA. That sits well below the 13x to 14x range BrightView would have attracted at the 2021 valuation peak.

U.S. Lawns divestiture (BrightView to Riverside, March 2024). BrightView sold U.S. Lawns to The Riverside Company in March 2024. The transaction was disclosed in a BrightView 8-K filed with the SEC (available via the BrightView investor relations site) and a Riverside press release. BrightView characterized the divestiture as a non-core franchise unit sale; the consideration was not separately disclosed. Trade-press estimates put the deal at a mid-single-digit EBITDA multiple on U.S. Lawns’ approximately $70 million in system-wide franchise revenue.

Yellowstone Landscape (Aurora to CIVC, 2023). CIVC Partners acquired Yellowstone Landscape from Aurora Capital Partners in 2023 in a sponsor-to-sponsor transaction. The consideration was not disclosed publicly. Yellowstone’s revenue at the time was reported by Lawn & Landscape to be roughly $450 million across the Southeast and Texas. CIVC’s portfolio page confirms the transaction and the continued bolt-on cadence.

The verified bolt-on cadence

Verified deal counts reflect public press releases and trade-press coverage. Where a sponsor’s portfolio page does not detail bolt-ons, the count is shown as reported in Lawn & Landscape or Landscape Management coverage. Roark / Lawn Doctor bolt-ons are franchise-system additions, not M&A transactions, and are tracked separately.

EBITDA multiple ranges in 2024 to 2026

Three sources converge on the multiple range. Peak Business Valuation’s landscaping valuation report places the average industry multiple at 3.63x to 3.98x adjusted EBITDA for the small-business segment (sub-$5 million revenue). Lawn & Landscape‘s M&A coverage and Capstone Partners’ landscape services market reports show 6.5x to 9x for commercial maintenance platforms. The implied 9x to 10x on BrightView’s take-private and 10x to 12x on premium platform sales triangulate to the following ranges for 2024 to 2026.

Sources: Peak Business Valuation, Capstone Partners landscape services market reports, Lawn & Landscape M&A coverage, BrightView 10-K filings via SEC EDGAR, sponsor announcements.

How multiple compression has played out since 2021

The 2021 peak was driven by zero-interest-rate sponsor competition and a flood of capital chasing essential-services rollups. Mid-market landscape platforms traded at 12x to 16x EBITDA in late 2021. As the federal funds rate rose from 0.25% in early 2022 to 5.25% by mid-2023 (per FRED FEDFUNDS series), debt-financed sponsor deals priced down roughly 1.0x to 1.5x across the board. The compression bottomed in mid-2024.

BrightView’s late-2024 take-private at the implied 9x to 10x trailing adjusted EBITDA closed roughly 4x below comparable 2021 transactions. Sponsor-to-sponsor secondary sales in 2025 closed at 10x to 12x for quality books. Anything that broke 12x in 2025 had a specific differentiator: commercial-only book with national customers, dominant water-restriction-state design-build practice, or vertically integrated nursery operations.

What the activity means for $5M to $50M operators

For a founder considering an exit, the 2026 PE buyer universe is deep but selective. The combination of strategic acquirers (BrightView, SavATree, Yellowstone, TruGreen) and active financial sponsors produces auction dynamics that benefit prepared sellers. The variables that push a deal toward the high end of the multiple range have not changed materially since 2021: high recurring maintenance revenue (60%+), customer concentration under 5%, route density, EBITDA margin above 15%, organic growth above 8%, geographic diversification, low founder dependency, second-tier management depth, clean working capital, and route software in place. Operators planning a sale 18 to 24 months out should be moving themselves off accounts and building a tier-two operating team. Our coverage of lawn and landscape private equity in 2026 and BrightView’s 34-deal roll-up tracks the strategic side.

For operators on the buy side, the sub-$5 million revenue segment is the gap. Sponsors rarely chase deals that small directly; founder-operators with capital can buy at 3x to 5x EBITDA from retiring owners. Search funds and family offices have moved into the segment and pay 4x to 6x. The Davey Tree employee-ownership case study and Ruppert Landscape’s 100% ESOP structure illustrate the ESOP exit alternative for owners who do not want a PE sale.

Why some PE sponsors picked landscape

The thesis is durable. The US landscaping industry generates roughly $176.7 billion in 2026 revenue across 556,000 businesses with 0.9% annual growth, per IBISWorld Landscaping Services in the US. The top 100 firms hold roughly 7.6% of total industry revenue (per the National Association of Landscape Professionals member analysis), meaning the long fragmentation tail is the opportunity. Recurring maintenance contracts produce gross margins of 35% to 45% with EBITDA margins of 12% to 18% for well-run mid-market operators (per NALP 2025 Financial Benchmark Report). The combination of fragmentation, recurring revenue, asset-light economics, and a steady stream of retirement-age founder-owners has kept sponsors active even through the multiple compression cycle.

Methodology

This tracker uses the 5-tier source hierarchy (Tier 1: press releases. Tier 2: SEC filings. Tier 3: sponsor portfolio pages. Tier 4: trade press. Tier 5: M&A press). To qualify for inclusion, a sponsor must (a) have at least one verified portfolio company in lawn, landscape, tree, or commercial-grounds services as of June 2026, (b) have completed or announced at least one transaction in the 36 months preceding the verification window, and (c) maintain an active bolt-on or platform-building thesis disclosed publicly or through trade-press interviews. Window covered: January 1, 2023 through June 15, 2026. Exclusion criteria: minority-stake holdings under 20%, holding-company structures with no green-industry-specific thesis, family offices that have not publicly disclosed at least one landscape transaction in the window. Deal counts and revenue figures are stated as reported by the sponsor or as reverse-engineered from SEC filings where available; any reported numbers without primary-source confirmation are excluded.

Limitations

This tracker does NOT include: (a) minority co-investors in deals led by other sponsors, (b) family offices that have not publicly disclosed a green-industry transaction, (c) search funds and independent sponsors under $250M committed capital, (d) sponsors with green-industry exposure only through holding-company structures (e.g., conglomerates with no dedicated landscape vertical), (e) regional rollups under $25 million enterprise value where sponsor identity has not been confirmed by press release. The sub-$5 million revenue end of the M&A market is the largest by deal volume and the least visible; most transactions there close without a press release. Sponsors that declined to confirm details on individual transactions are still listed where their portfolio page or fund disclosure confirms a green-industry holding. The implied multiple ranges in the deal pricing table are reverse-engineered from disclosed enterprise values against reported revenue and EBITDA figures; exact deal terms for non-public transactions are not disclosed by sponsors and not stated in this tracker. International sponsors with US landscape holdings (Apax, headquartered London) are included; US sponsors with international holdings are listed at their US AUM where disclosed.

Future Updates

This tracker refreshes quarterly. Next refresh: September 16, 2026. Subsequent refresh: December 16, 2026. Updates will add newly confirmed transactions, remove sponsors that have exited their green-industry positions, and revise AUM figures as fund closes and earnings disclosures are published. To request notification of the next refresh, see the HMNDP news desk. Corrections requested by sponsors will be processed within 14 business days against the same source-hierarchy standard.

Sources & References

The list below covers every external citation in this tracker, in order of appearance:

• KKR & Co. (2026). ‘KKR Q1 2026 Earnings Release.’ https://www.kkr.com/invest
• Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. (2026). ‘CD&R Portfolio.’ https://www.cdr-inc.com/
• Bain Capital. (2026). ‘Bain Capital Firm Overview.’ https://www.baincapital.com/
• Roark Capital. (2026). ‘Roark Capital Portfolio.’ https://www.roarkcapital.com/
• Apax Partners. (2026). ‘Apax Firm Page.’ https://www.apax.com/
• CIVC Partners. (2026). ‘CIVC Portfolio.’ https://www.civc.com/portfolio/
• Aurora Capital Partners. (2026). ‘Aurora Capital Firm Page.’ https://www.auroracap.com/
• The Riverside Company. (2026). ‘Riverside Portfolio.’ https://www.riversidecompany.com/portfolio/
• Audax Group. (2026). ‘Audax Private Equity Companies.’ https://www.audaxprivateequity.com/companies
• The Carlyle Group. (2026). ‘Carlyle Q1 2026 Earnings.’ https://www.carlyle.com/
• Trivest Partners. (2026). ‘Trivest Firm Page.’ https://www.trivest.com/
• Sentinel Capital Partners. (2026). ‘Sentinel Firm Page.’ https://www.sentinelpartners.com/
• Wind Point Partners. (2026). ‘Wind Point Firm Page.’ https://www.windpointpartners.com/
• Trilantic North America. (2026). ‘Trilantic Firm Page.’ https://www.trilantic.com/
• HKW Capital. (2026). ‘HKW Firm Page.’ https://www.hkwcapital.com/
• BrightView Holdings. ‘Investor Relations.’ https://investor.brightview.com/
• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. ‘EDGAR Filings, BrightView Holdings Inc., CIK 0001734713.’ SEC EDGAR
• Lawn & Landscape. ‘M&A Coverage Archive.’ https://www.lawnandlandscape.com/
• PE Hub. ‘PE Hub Wire.’ https://www.pehub.com/
• SavATree. ‘News.’ https://www.savatree.com/news/
• Peak Business Valuation. ‘Landscaping Business Valuation Report.’ https://peakbusinessvaluation.com/landscaping-business-valuation/
• Federal Reserve Economic Data. ‘FEDFUNDS Series.’ https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS
• IBISWorld. (2026). ‘Landscaping Services in the US.’ https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/landscaping-services-industry/
• National Association of Landscape Professionals. (2025). ‘2025 Financial Benchmark Report.’ https://www.landscapeprofessionals.org/
• HMNDP Landscaping. ‘Lawn and Landscape Private Equity 2026.’ /lawn-landscape-private-equity-2026/
• HMNDP Landscaping. ‘BrightView Acquisitions 2026.’ /brightview-acquisitions-2026/
• HMNDP Landscaping. ‘Davey Tree Employee-Owned Landscape.’ /davey-tree-employee-owned-landscape/
• HMNDP Landscaping. ‘Ruppert Landscape 100% Employee-Owned.’ /ruppert-landscape-100-percent-employee-owned/
• HMNDP Landscaping. ‘US Landscaping Market 186 Billion.’ /us-landscaping-market-186-billion/
• HMNDP Landscaping. ‘US Lawn Care Market Size 2026.’ /us-lawn-care-market-size-2026/
• HMNDP Landscaping. ‘Research Pillar.’ /research/
• HMNDP Landscaping. ‘News Desk.’ /news/
• HMNDP Landscaping. ‘Playbook Pillar.’ /playbook/