Blue Sage Exits Timber Automation

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blue Sage Capital (“Blue Sage”) announced today that it closed on the sale of Timber Automation, LLC (“Timber”) to USNR, a subsidiary of Wood Technologies International. Timber is a leading manufacturer and supplier of equipment and systems for the forest products and biomass industries. The company manufactures and supplies blue-chip customers and independent sawmills with custom engineered equipment and control systems that maximize lumber yield and reduce labor costs, as well as machinery for sawmill logyards, engineered wood products plants, pulp and paper plants, chip mills, and pellet mills. Blue Sage invested in Timber in August 2015 through its partnership with the company’s founders and management team.

Blue Sage Managing Member, Jim McBride, remarked, “Timber is a great example of the Blue Sage strategy at work. We partnered with the founders of the business, helped them transition into retirement and hired an excellent team to usher Timber into its next phase of growth. Credit John Steck, President, Renee Teel, CFO, and their entire team for achieving an outstanding outcome in the face of tariffs and volatile lumber prices, a pandemic, and geopolitical unrest.”

Blue Sage Partner, Eric Weiner, added, “during our investment period we roughly doubled Timber’s revenues by transforming the manufacturing facility using lean and six sigma principles to increase capacity, adding installation capabilities to provide customers a turn-key solution, and making a significant tuck-in acquisition in VAB Solutions.”

Blue Sage and Timber were represented in the transaction by D.A. Davidson & Co. (Investment Advisory), Queen Saenz + Schutz PLLC (Legal), Kroll Transaction Advisory Services (Accounting) and Cherry Bekaert (Tax).

About Blue Sage Capital

Blue Sage Capital is an Austin, Texas-based private equity firm that has been investing in profitable, growing, lower middle-market companies since 2002. Blue Sage currently has over $400 million of assets under management and seeks to partner with founders, families, and management teams as the first round of institutional capital for businesses that enjoy leadership positions in niche manufacturing, environmental solutions, or specialty services industries. Blue Sage typically invests $20 million to $40 million in control buyout investments and recapitalizations of companies with $20 million to $200 million of revenue.