Packers Holdings announced the completion of a recapitalization of the company by Harvest Partners and Leonard Green & Partners, in partnership with the company’s management team.

Committed debt financing for the transaction was provided by Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, GE Capital and Crescent Mezzanine. White & Case acted as legal advisor to Harvest. Latham & Watkins acted as legal advisor to Leonard Green. Harris Williams & Co. and Moelis & Company acted as financial advisors to PSSI.

“PSSI is the clear leader in its market, combining an accomplished management team, an exceptional track record and significant opportunities for continued growth,” said John Danhakl, managing partner at Leonard Green. “We are excited to partner with Jeff and Dale Kaiser and Harvest in supporting the next phase of the Company’s growth.”

“PSSI provides a mission-critical service to its customers in the attractive food processing market, said Jay Wilkins, Managing Director at Harvest. Outsourcing cleaning and sanitation to reliable, highly-specialized third parties will continue as regulators and the public increasingly focus on the safety of the nation’s food supply and demand the highest standards.” Steve Eisenstein, senior managing director at Harvest, added, “PSSI is well-positioned to benefit from these favorable market tailwinds. We look forward to partnering with Leonard Green and continuing our partnership with management as they build upon PSSI’s history of 25 consecutive years of uninterrupted growth.”

“With the growth opportunities ahead in our business, this is an opportunity to take the next step forward and further our position as the market leader in outsourced services to the food processing industry,” said Jeff Kaiser, CEO at PSSI. “We look forward to working with our new partners at Leonard Green and furthering our relationship with Harvest as we continue to provide exceptional service and value to our customers.”

Kieler, WI-headquartered PSSI is North America’s largest and only nationwide provider of mission-critical outsourced cleaning and sanitation services to the growing food processing industry.

Leonard Green is a private equity firms with over $15 billion of private equity capital raised since inception.

Harvest Partners is a New York-based private equity investment firm pursuing management buyouts and recapitalizations of middle market companies in North America.