Platform File: Wrench Group

Editorial update: October 14, 2026. Original reporting dates are unchanged.

Leonard Green & Partners has held a majority stake in Wrench Group since 2019. Several national residential-services peers changed hands or recapitalized afterward. That ownership history, alongside the state license counts, is the basis for this 2026 review.

Facts in this file are drawn from public records, company announcements, and state licensing data. Passages marked “The read:” are Echelon’s interpretation, not reported fact.

Wrench Group is an established name in the great trades roll-up. This file checks its sponsor history and brand licenses separately. Several reports confused it with another 2026 transaction, so the direction and parties to each deal matter.

Who owns Wrench, and who does not

Wrench Group has moved through a clear sequence of sponsor ownership since it was assembled. Its four founding regional companies, anchored in Atlanta, Houston, the Dallas and Fort Worth metro, and Phoenix, were built up under Alpine Investors, Skylight Capital, and management before 2016. In March 2016, Investcorp acquired the group and brought it together under the Wrench Group name, elevating Ken Haines to chief executive. In April 2019, Investcorp sold Wrench to Leonard Green & Partners, which took majority control and still holds it. In November 2022, TSG Consumer Partners and Oak Hill Capital made a significant minority investment, with Leonard Green and management retaining the majority. In September 2025, a private-credit group led by Blue Owl and Oak Hill Advisors arranged a 1.3 billion dollar debt refinancing that replaced the platform’s prior bank facilities. Through the first half of 2026, there has been no change of control, and the most recent platform-level news is an AI customer-support partnership announced in March.

Now the part several outlets got wrong. A number of third-party sources circulated a claim in early 2026 that Wrench Group had been acquired in a roughly 2.5 billion dollar deal. That transaction was real, but it was not Wrench. It was Blackstone’s agreement to acquire Champions Group, an Orange County residential-services platform, from Odyssey Investment Partners. The two are easy to confuse because Champions Group was formerly named Service Champions, and Wrench operates a separate, unrelated brand called Service Champions North in Northern California. Wrench Group was not the buyer and was not the target. The distinction matters, because a reader who believes Wrench just sold will misjudge everything about its phase.

The brands under the platform

By its own verified profile, Wrench operates across 14 states and 25 markets, with a reported employee band of 5,001 to 10,000 and leadership anchored by Ken Haines as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Dennis Laliberte as Chief Operating Officer. The Echelon Database tracks 27 named brands under the platform, which group into three tiers.

The founding core, assembled in 2016, is Coolray Heating & Air Conditioning and Mr. Plumber Atlanta in Atlanta, Abacus Plumbing, Air Conditioning & Electrical in Houston, Berkeys Plumbing, AC & Electrical in the Dallas and Fort Worth metro, and Parker & Sons in Phoenix.

The Midwest brands operate under the MAX Service Group sub-platform: Williams Comfort Air and the Mr. Plumber brands in Indianapolis, Jarboe’s Plumbing, Heating & Cooling in Louisville, Thomas & Galbraith in Cincinnati, and Buckeye Heating, Cooling & Plumbing in Columbus.

The balance were added through acquisition and greenfield across the South, West, and Mid-Atlantic: BriteBox Electrical Services and Ragsdale in Atlanta, Baker Brothers in Dallas, Collins Comfort Masters in Gilbert, Service Champions North in Sacramento, Maine Home Services in San Jose, Plumbline Services in Denver, CoolToday in Sarasota, Donovan Air, Electric & Plumbing in Jacksonville, Lindstrom Air Conditioning & Plumbing in Pompano Beach, Red Cap Plumbing, Air & Electric in Tampa, Morris-Jenkins in Charlotte, Comfort Wave in Oklahoma City, Mountain Home Services in Salt Lake City, Boothe’s Heating, Air & Plumbing in southern Maryland, and Comfort Dynamics in Memphis.

What Wrench holds on the ground

Echelon compares its Wrench brand map with active state license rosters in six reviewed states. The first table counts 26 active contractor-license records across eight mapped brands in Florida, Texas and Ohio. It counts credentials, not distinct businesses or jobs. The Florida rows count trade-specific license records; Ohio’s plumbing and electrical licenses cover particular trades, not every service a brand offers. Kentucky counts individual HVAC credentials instead, while Colorado’s state records omit county-level HVAC licensing. Tennessee’s exact-name search found no active record for Comfort Dynamics, but cannot rule out a differently named license holder. Name collisions are checked before adding a record.

Two are worth naming precisely. Thomas & Galbraith’s two Ohio licenses are a plumbing and an electrical license, not HVAC, and Abacus’s single Texas license is electrical. The table counts active licenses in the reviewed trade categories, not separate operating companies or the full scope of either brand’s work.

The Florida figures use primary state license records. Other credential records may exist outside this reviewed set. These are floors for the reviewed Florida license categories, not totals for distinct businesses or every credential a brand may hold.

Kentucky: where the license belongs to the person, not the company

Kentucky does not license the contracting business as a single entity. It licenses people, and under Kentucky law every HVAC journeyman and apprentice works under a Master HVAC Contractor who pulls the permits and carries the liability. So the fair count in Kentucky is not company licenses, it is the licensed workforce rolled up to each brand. Two Wrench brands appear, Jarboe’s and Thomas & Galbraith, both tied to the parent through WCA Group, the Williams Comfort Air holding entity, which confirms these are the real Wrench brands and not local namesakes. Together they field 61 live HVAC credentials, anchored by 5 Master HVAC Contractor licenses, the credentials that legally hold the permits. Ohio, another market Echelon watches closely, is covered in why private equity is buying HVAC companies in Ohio.

In Kentucky, Jarboe’s had 25 journeymen and 3 apprentices in the reviewed HVAC records. Thomas & Galbraith had 13 journeymen and 15 apprentices. Those counts show a different workforce mix, but do not prove a hiring strategy. Echelon also tracks plumbing and electrical credentials for the brands; they are not included in this HVAC count.

Colorado: a company-licensing state where HVAC lives at the county level

Colorado licenses the contracting company as an entity, the way Florida and Texas do, but with a structural catch: HVAC is licensed at the county level in Colorado, not by the state, so the state roster does not carry it. What the state does license, and what Echelon captures, is electrical and plumbing contractors. Wrench’s Colorado brand, Plumbline Services in the Denver metro, holds 2 active state licenses, one electrical contractor and one plumbing contractor, both registered in Centennial. Three other Colorado records share the Plumbline name and were verified out: an unrelated Plumbline Mechanical in Gunnison, a separate County Plumbline in Denver, and a lapsed Plumbline Plumbing in Miami. So Colorado enters as a verified two-license electrical and plumbing presence, with the HVAC footprint sitting in county records the state roster does not reach.

Tennessee: exact-name license search

Tennessee state contractor records identify license holders, but a trade name need not be the holder’s legal name. Comfort Dynamics operates in the Memphis area, but the reviewed roster showed no active state contractor license under that exact name. Two exact-name records were inactive: one application-expired, the other closed, with the latest lapse in early 2025. A search of active Memphis-area licenses under Comfort or Dynamics variants returned only unrelated companies. These exact-name results do not establish whether a differently named entity holds a relevant license.

Buckeye in Columbus had no active Ohio license under its own name in the reviewed roster. Comfort Dynamics likewise had no active Tennessee state contractor license under its exact trade name. A different entity could hold a relevant license, so these findings do not establish unlicensed operation in either market.

Majority control held through capital changes

Wrench’s majority owner has remained in place since 2019, though its capital structure changed in 2022 and 2025. Several national residential-services peers changed majority owner or announced capital transactions over the following years. Sila moved to Goldman Sachs Alternatives in November 2024. Redwood took an Altas Partners majority in May 2025. Service Logic went to Bain Capital and Mubadala in December 2025. Champions Group agreed to a Blackstone acquisition in February 2026 at a reported 2.5 billion dollars, near 18.5 times earnings. Apex drew a reported 2 billion dollar Apollo investment at a reported 10 billion dollar valuation in May 2026. Among the selected peers, Wrench has not changed majority owner since 2019. It did receive minority capital in 2022 and refinance debt in 2025.

Wrench has kept the same majority owner since 2019, while a 2022 minority sale and a 2025 debt refinancing changed its capital structure. Those transactions make a future liquidity event worth watching. They do not show that a sale process is underway; Wrench still acquires brands and adds technology partnerships.

Wrench’s long majority hold stands beside recent peer transactions at reported high-teen earnings multiples. Its brands also continued hiring and buying; Thomas & Galbraith’s reviewed Kentucky roster listed 15 apprentices. A future sale is an analytical possibility, not a recorded process.

Frequently asked questions

Who owns Wrench Group in 2026?

Leonard Green & Partners holds the majority, in place since 2019, with TSG Consumer Partners and Oak Hill Capital as minority investors since 2022. There was no change of control in 2026.

Is Wrench Group the same company as Champions Group?

No. Champions Group is a separate residential-services platform that agreed to a Blackstone acquisition from Odyssey Investment Partners in February 2026. Champions Group was formerly named Service Champions. Wrench Group operates an unrelated brand called Service Champions North, which is the source of frequent confusion between the two.

How large is Wrench Group?

By its own verified profile, Wrench Group operates across 14 states and 25 markets, with a reported employee band of 5,001 to 10,000. The Echelon Database tracks 27 named brands under the platform.

How many contractor licenses does Wrench Group hold?

Within the reviewed states, eight Wrench brands account for 26 active contractor-license records in Florida, Texas and Ohio: 19, 5 and 2 respectively. These are credentials, not distinct businesses. These span the trades each state licenses; in Ohio, the two Thomas & Galbraith licenses are plumbing and electrical. In Kentucky, which licenses individuals rather than companies, its two brands field 61 live HVAC credentials. In Colorado, where HVAC is licensed at the county level, its Denver brand holds 2 active state licenses in electrical and plumbing. In Tennessee, the reviewed roster had no active contractor-license record under its Memphis brand’s exact name; that does not rule out another legal holder. The Florida figures count primary trade-specific license records, not distinct businesses, and are a floor for the reviewed categories.

Is Wrench Group for sale?

There is no announced sale process on the public record. On our read, however, Leonard Green has held the majority since 2019, several selected peers have since transacted, and Wrench refinanced debt in 2025. Those conditions make a future liquidity event worth watching. We present that as analysis, not prediction.

Methodology and sources. The corporate snapshot is drawn from Wrench Group’s own verified company profile. The ownership timeline is assembled from sponsor and company announcements and M&A trade press. The license footprint is produced by the Echelon Database, which cross-references a maintained platform-ownership map against active state license rosters in the six states Echelon currently tracks: Florida, Texas, Ohio, Kentucky, Colorado, and Tennessee. In Florida, Texas and Ohio, the first table counts active trade-specific contractor-license records associated with mapped brands, not distinct companies or all work performed. Colorado licenses the company but licenses HVAC at the county level, so only its state-level electrical and plumbing licenses are counted. Where a state licenses individuals, Kentucky, Echelon rolls credentials up to the operating business and reports the licensed HVAC workforce by tier, with the brands confirmed to the parent through the WCA Group holding entity. Common-name collisions are removed through home-state, county, and exact-name verification. Florida figures reflect primary state license records and are presented as a verified floor. The distinction between Wrench Group and Champions Group was confirmed against primary filings after several third-party sources conflated the two. Peer transaction values and multiples are from public announcements and M&A trade press and are presented as reported figures. The platform-phase read is labeled analysis, not prediction. Echelon takes no position on the merits of any transaction or policy referenced.