-- Charlie Mullins’ father worked in a toy-car factory. His mother cleaned homes. Today, Mullins has a £10 million London penthouse with a view of the Thames. “Tom Jones lives there, if you can believe it,” he says, pointing to the flat above him, where the Welsh singer is a neighbor.Mullins can credit his dazzling rise to the unlikely intersection of high finance and blue-collar labor.
But after stepping back from operations once the deal completed, he now regrets selling. Pimlico’s sales declined after the acquisition, and a son and grandson quit the company in frustration. Mullins says he hears complaints about service from customers who still think he’s in charge. “They’re running it the American way, and that ain’t the way to run a British company, which is on a personal basis,” he says. KKR and Neighborly declined requests for comment.
Cunningham employs five of his eight grown children and wonders what would happen after he cashed a PE firm’s multimillion-dollar check. “I’m not sure where the money’s going to come from, but if they are going to turn people into millionaires, it’s got to come from somewhere,” says Cunningham, 62. “It’ll be either the customer or the guys in the field.”
Neighborly’s 5,500 franchises, with names like Mr. Rooter Plumbing, Dry Vent Wizard and Mosquito Joe, reported $4.1 billion in sales last year. One of its rivals, Sarasota, Florida-based Wrench Group LLC reports $1.5 billion in annual revenue from companies such as Parker & Sons in Arizona and Buckeye Heating, Cooling & Plumbing in Ohio. Its PE backers include Leonard Green & Partners, TSG Consumer Partners and Oak Hill Capital Partners.
Ken Haines sold his company, Coolray Cooling, Heating, Plumbing & Electrical in Marietta, Georgia, to Wrench before becoming the parent company’s chief executive officer. By investing in technology, the bigger company lets even successful home-services business grow far faster, Haines says: “How do we pour jet fuel on an already raging fire? How do we get a larger share of customer homes? That’s what we’re focusing on.
Soon, his trademark blue vans—recognizable for their themed license plates, such as “DRA 1N,” “W4 TER” and “BOG 2” —were spotted everywhere across central London. In the year ended May 2021, Pimlico reported £49.2 million in revenue and distributed £3.2 million in dividends to Mullins, according to a government filing.