Grand Power receives $700K investment to support growth

Grand Power receives $700K investment to support growth

GRAND HAVEN — A new investment from private equity owner Blackford Capital gives Grand Haven-based portfolio company Grand Power Systems Inc. capital needed to support growth.

Grand Rapids-based Blackford Capital closed in March on a $700,000 raise for Grand Power that involved four investors, according to a filing with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission. The filing indicated the private equity firm wants to raise another $50,000 for Grand Power.

Blackford Capital plans to match the investment with debt to provide growth capital for Grand Power.

“We’re growing and we need growth capital,” said Steve Parker, an operating partner at Blackford Capital who chairs Grand Power’s board. “Expansion of markets, products and customers, we need equity to do that.”

The growth capital will go toward new engineering technologies “that are going to make our products and new markets even more successful,” Parker said.

Blackford Capital acquired Grand Power, formerly known as Grand Transformer, in 2014. The firm in 2016 acquired Warner, N.H.-based Warner Power, a designer and manufacturer of electrical transformers and power systems, that brought in new products lines and markets “that made us more strategically valuable,” Parker said.

Under a CEO recruited in 2017, Stephen Paul, Grand Power developed new products, markets and customers that are driving growth, Parker said. The company for 2020 projects sales of a little more than $30 million.

Through organic growth and the Warner acquisition, Grand Power has double sales under Blackford Capital’s ownership. Revenues over the last 12 months have grown about 15 percent.

New markets for Grand Power Systems include data centers and wind energy, microwave technology, battery charging technology, electric vehicles, and overhead power line distribution, Parker said. 

The company has a new deal “with a significant player” in wind energy, he added.

In power line distribution, Grand Power is working with a California company that “has a very innovative and market-busting product that we’re very much a part of that’s going to be able to distribute that power in a more even manner,” Parker said.