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Find a verified pro near you →Roll-up = a private equity firm buys one mid-sized contractor, then uses it as a platform to acquire 20, 50, or 100+ smaller local shops — preserving the consumer-facing brand names while consolidating dispatch, pricing, financing, and incentives at the platform level. The customer never sees the change. The invoice does.
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For the quote-comparison angle specifically, who really owns your three contractor quotes shows the five-minute ownership check before you compare bids.
This guide names the players, names their brands, and gives you the one question that exposes the structure in 30 seconds. Use it before you book.
— AllBetter editorial, 2026
The Three Players in Home Services
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Find a verified pro near you →Every contractor you can hire belongs to one of three categories. Knowing which is in front of you changes everything.
- Owner answers the phone
- Owner makes the bid
- Owner does the work
- Franchisee owns truck
- Royalties + pricing scripts
- National brand standards
- Dispatch from HQ
- Platform pricing
- Return-target P&L
Player 1 — Independent local: One owner, one or two trucks, one phone number that the owner answers. Pricing is set by the owner based on local market and the cost of doing the job right.
Player 2 — Franchise: A locally-owned business that pays royalties to a national franchisor (which may or may not be PE-owned). The franchisee buys into a brand, a marketing co-op, scripts, training, and pricing benchmarks. Local accountability is real but constrained by franchisor rules.
Player 3 — PE roll-up: The brand name on the truck is a marketing skin. The underlying entity is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a private equity portfolio company. Dispatch, pricing, financing terms, service plans, and replace-or-repair scripts route through a centralized platform whose financial model requires growing EBITDA every quarter.
The Human Test: One Question
The hesitation matters as much as the answer. Front-desk staff at PE-owned brands are typically not trained to disclose ownership structure unless directly asked. The most common deflection is “we’re locally operated” — a phrase carefully chosen to be technically true (the truck operates locally) while concealing the actual ownership chain.
Who Owns Your “Local” Brand — The 2026 Verified Table
Below: the major consumer-facing home services brands you’d recognize, and who actually owns them as of 2025–2026. Verified against primary sources (press releases, SEC filings, PE firm portfolio pages).
| Consumer Brand (What’s on the Truck) | Actual Owner (Who Cashes Your Check) | Year Acquired | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mr. Rooter, Mr. Electric, Aire Serv, Mr. Appliance, Molly Maid, Glass Doctor, Mr. Handyman (and 23+ other “Mr./Molly/Glass/Aire” brands) | KKR via Neighborly (acquired from Harvest Partners) | 2021 | 30+ franchisor brands · 5,000+ franchisees globally · Mr. Rooter alone has 230+ locations |
| Mister Sparky, One Hour Heating & Air, Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, Mosquito Squad, The Cleaning Authority, Homewatch CareGivers | Apax Partners via Authority Brands | 2018 (Authority Brands); Clockwork brands added Spring 2019 | 15 brands · 2,000+ territories · 1,000+ franchise owners |
| ARS / Rescue Rooter (American Residential Services) | GI Partners (majority since 2020); Charlesbank (minority) | 2014 (Charlesbank) · 2020 (GI Partners took majority) | National HVAC/plumbing footprint |
| Apex Service Partners portfolio (107 brands across HVAC, plumbing, electrical) | Alpine Investors (Fund VII/VII-A + $3.4B continuation fund 2023) | Founded 2019; continuation 2023 | $1.3B revenue · 8,000+ technicians · 60 add-ons in 2025 alone |
| Champions Group portfolio (Service Champions, Bell Brothers, Sierra Air, Hobaica, Bee’s Plumbing, Seatown, and 17 other brands) | Blackstone (BXPE) — pending close H1 2026; Odyssey Investment Partners retains minority | Feb 2026 (announced) | 22 brands · 1,800+ techs · 150K members · 7 states · ~$140M EBITDA |
| Wrench Group portfolio | Leonard Green & Partners (majority); TSG Consumer + Oak Hill (minority since Nov 2022) | Apr 2019 (LGP acquired from Investcorp) | 24 markets · 13 states · 5,800 employees · 1.75M customers/yr |
| Roto-Rooter | Chemed Corporation (NYSE: CHE) — publicly traded, NOT a PE roll-up | 1980 | 600+ service locations across all 50 states + Canada |
| Leaf Home + Erie Home (combined September 2025) | Gridiron Capital (majority); Apollo (debt); Ares (preferred equity) | Sep 2025 | Major roofing/gutter/window/bath rollup platform |
Sources: Blackstone · KKR/Neighborly · Apax Partners · Alpine Investors · Leonard Green · Charlesbank · Wikipedia
Red Flags vs. Green Flags
What to look for before you book. The pattern is consistent across trades — plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, cleaning.
🚩 Red Flags (Probably PE-Owned)
- “Service plan” pushed on first call (recurring revenue is PE gold)
- Diagnostic / trip fee that’s identical to other “local” competitors down to the dollar
- Technician compensation tied to ticket size (replace-don’t-repair incentive)
- Multiple consumer-facing brands operating from the same dispatch center or phone bank
- Glossy national-grade marketing budget for a “family-owned” business
- Financing offered in-truck for jobs under $1,000
- “Locally operated” language (technically true; conceals the ownership)
- No owner photo on the About page; or a CEO with no operating history in the trade
✅ Green Flags (Probably Independent)
- Owner answers the phone or is reachable by name
- Diagnostic fee is waived if you book the repair
- Quote is for the job, not the truck-roll plus the service plan
- Photo of the owner with their truck in the About page
- Long-tenured technicians (5+ years) on the same crew
- Estimate given via photos; no in-home “consultation” required
- Owner is willing to itemize parts vs. labor on the invoice
- Reviews mention the owner by name, repeatedly
— AllBetter editorial, 2026
What to Do About It
Three steps homeowners can take starting today:
- Ask the ownership question on the first call. Front-desk hesitation tells you most of what you need to know in 5 seconds.
- Cross-reference the brand on LinkedIn. Look at the company profile’s “Parent organization” field. PE-owned brands almost always list it accurately on LinkedIn even when the consumer-facing site is silent.
- Use a marketplace that filters for independents. The structural alternative to a PE-owned platform is a marketplace where independent contractors compete directly for your job in real time — with binding bids, escrow payment, and no platform layer extracting margin.
Further Reading
- Who Owns Champions Group Holdings? — full breakdown of Blackstone’s $2.5B HVAC roll-up
- Who Owns Apex Service Partners? — Alpine Investors’ 107-brand empire
- The Plumber App — Book a Verified Local Plumber — independent alternative
- The HVAC App — Book a Verified Local HVAC Pro
More in the who-owns series: Who owns Angi (and HomeAdvisor, and Handy)? — the marketplace side of the same consolidation story.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is private equity really acquiring local contractors at scale?
Yes. PE-backed platforms accounted for 39 of 77 HVAC M&A deals in H1 2025 — roughly 51% of all transactions. PE share of HVAC deals went from 8% in 2023 to 23% in 2024 to 51% in H1 2025. Year-over-year add-on activity in home services was up 88% in mid-2025. The trend is accelerating, not slowing. Sources: S&P Global Market Intelligence · Capstone Partners
How can I tell if a brand is PE-owned?
(1) Ask front-desk: “Who owns this company?” (2) Search the brand on LinkedIn — check the “Parent organization” field. (3) Look at the About page — no owner photo + national-grade marketing = likely PE roll-up. (4) Check our verified table above for the major platforms.
What’s the difference between a franchise and a PE-backed roll-up?
A franchise (Player 2) is a locally-owned business paying royalties to a franchisor for brand, marketing, and operational support. The local franchisee owns the truck and the P&L. A PE roll-up (Player 3) acquires the local business — the brand stays on the truck for marketing continuity, but ownership and the P&L route to the PE platform. Both can be PE-controlled at the top (e.g., KKR owns Neighborly, the franchisor of Mr. Rooter), but the local-economics question is different.
Is Angi PE-owned?
Angi (formerly Angie’s List, then HomeAdvisor) is owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp, a publicly-traded holding company controlled by Barry Diller. It is not a PE roll-up in the traditional sense, but its lead-fee business model creates similar incentive distortions to PE-owned platforms — contractors pay $10-$80 per lead, and that cost rolls into your quote.
Are all national home-services brands PE-owned?
No. Roto-Rooter is owned by Chemed (publicly traded, not PE). Some regional and local franchise systems remain founder-owned or family-owned at the franchisor level. But the major rollup-style consolidators in HVAC, plumbing, and electrical — Apex, Authority Brands, Champions Group, Wrench Group, ARS, Neighborly — are all PE-backed.
Why should I care about ownership if the work gets done?
Because the ownership architecture drives the pricing architecture. A PE platform paying 18.5× EBITDA (like Champions Group sold for) has to grow EBITDA every quarter to make the math work. Growth comes from raising prices, increasing ticket sizes, cutting cost-of-service, and adding more tuck-in acquisitions. Each of those decisions affects what you pay — and what level of personal service you get — for the next decade.
