Brenntag is the global market leader in chemicals and ingredients distribution. Headquartered in Essen, Germany, the company has more than 17,500 employees worldwide and operates a network of more than 600 sites in 72 countries. Its two global divisions, Brenntag Essentials, and Brenntag Specialties, provide a full-line portfolio of industrial and specialty chemicals and ingredients as well as tailor-made application, marketing and supply chain solutions, technical and formulation support, comprehensive regulatory know-how, and digital solutions for a wide range of industries. Brenntag finished lubricants portfolio resides in the Brenntag Essentials division.

Brenntag manages its business through four geographically structured segments including, EMEA, North America, Latin America, and Asia Pacific.

As one of Mobil’s largest authorized distributors, Brenntag’s Lubricants division is a market leader in distributing finished lubricants and ancillary products to the automotive, commercial, and industrial business segments and a distributor of many of the major OEM brands. In addition to lubricants, Brenntag distributes base oils (ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips (PURE PERFORMANCE®), Motiva (Aramco), and Novvi™), and it’s the exclusive distributor of Infineum Petroleum Additives in North America.

As with RelaDyne, private equity also played an important role in Brenntag’s journey to become a true titan in the US lubricant distribution business. To start, while Brenntag’s roots go back to 1874, and as a stock corporation enjoyed tremendous growth organically and through numerous strategic acquisitions, Bain Capital, a US private equity firm, acquired Brenntag in 2004. Then in a secondary buyout in 2006, BC Partners, a global private investment firm, acquired control of Brenntag for close to $3.3 billion. BC Partners continued to grow the company and expand its network and market shares with nearly 100 strategic acquisitions, including investments in the US lubricant distribution space.

In March 2010, Brenntag went public with trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and BC Partners reportedly made three-times return on its investment in Brenntag after exiting the business.

Brenntag’s interest in the US lubricant market first showed up on the radar in 2012, when the company acquired the assets of Lubrication Services, LLC (LSi), one of North America’s leading multi-regional distributors of lubricants and chemicals. Brenntag’s presence in the US market and interest in expanding its lubricants business became quite evident when it acquired J.A.M. Distributing Company in Houston, G.H. Berlin-Windward in NH, the lubricants business of NOCO in NY, and Mayes County Petroleum Products in Oklahoma in 2015/16. When combined, these acquisitions contributed close to $1 billion in sales and moved Brenntag into the position as the largest lubricant distributor in the US at that time, and provided Brenntag with a strong platform for growth in the consolidating US lubricants business. In addition, it is believed to have made Brenntag the largest distributor of Mobil lubricants in the world.

To fully appreciate how private equity fits into the Brenntag story, it’s also important to understand the story behind G.H. Berlin-Windward, one of Brenntag’s largest acquisitions in the US lubricants business.

Prior to December 2011, when Booth Waltz Enterprises (dba G.H. Berlin) acquired Windward Petroleum, the two companies were competitors. G.H. Berlin, headquartered in East Hartford, Connecticut, was Founded in 1920 and was one of the largest and most well-respected distributors of finished lubricants and ancillary products within the automotive, commercial, and industrial sectors in the region.  The company operated facilities in East Hartford, CT, Canterbury, CT, Nashua, NH, St. Johnsbury, VT, and Dover, NJ.  As a privately held company, G.H. Berlin successfully grew its business organically and through 27 acquisitions to become a powerhouse in the northeast market. The company marketed the brands of ConocoPhillips, Citgo, Shell, Gulf, Summit and others. And when they acquired Windward, G.H. Berlin added ExxonMobil to its product offerings. 

The Windward story is quite different.

Windward Petroleum was one of the first and largest private equity rollups in the lubricant distribution space. The company was cofounded by Mike Spoor and John D. Doehring (formerly with ExxonMobil) in 1998 with funding from the private equity group of Halpern, Denny & Co., and later nearly $15 million of mezzanine funding from the private equity group of Brown Brothers Harriman & Co, who later took control of the company. The firm’s vision was to build a lubricants company through acquisitions that had unprecedented scale. And by doing so, create a company with a distinctly different offering to its customers, suppliers, employees and investors. In addition to marketing the Exxon, Mobil, Citgo, Shell, Pennzoil, Quaker State, Kendall, Castrol, and Texaco brands, Windward marketed its own private label lubricant under the NaviGuard trade name. 

Bailey Distributing was among Windward’s first acquisitions and the platform to build. Another 17 acquisitions followed including lubricant distributors from Maine to Florida. In the process, Winward grew to become one of the largest lubricant distributors in the US, at that time.

But Windward may have grown too fast leading up to the challenging economic times of the Great Recession (2007 to 2009).  The company was struggling and as a result, in 2011 Brown Brothers Harriman divested non-strategic assets in the South and refocused its efforts in the Northeastern markets. In addition, as the business downsized there were a number of changes in their senior management team. But to the credit of Brown Brothers Harriman, they did what they had to do to maintain Windward’s presence in the market before exiting the space by way of a trade sale to G.H. Berlin in 2011. 

So, when Brenntag acquired G.H. Berlin for approximately $185 million, they got what had once been 45 independent lubricant distributors. And when J.A.M., NOCO, Mayes County Petroleum, Reeder, B&M Oil, Lubrication Services, LLC and others are included in the fold, it’s clear to see how Brenntag rose to become a titan in the US lubricant distribution business.