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When a contractor abandoned Jeff Thiessen’s half-finished backyard pool in Scottsdale, Arizona, he called Shasta Pools. Phoenix-based Shasta, which has been around for more than 60 years, finished the job. Last month, Thiessen’s family office bought it.
You might think the golden age of swimming pools has passed. Americans’ pandemic-era enthusiasm for spending more time and money in their backyards has faded. New in-ground pool construction fell below 60,000 units last year, roughly half its pandemic peak and the lowest level seen since the early 1980s, according to Pool Corporation, the world’s largest distributor of swimming pool supplies and equipment.
The average cost of building a swimming pool, across the 377 jobs completed by Shasta in 2025, is $73,500.
“It’s more of an I-shape [market] now,” said Skip Ast III, director of sales at Shasta and part of the third generation of the founding Ast family. “It’s just the haves and have-nots.”
Despite this, more than two dozen sponsor-backed swimming pool platforms have formed or been acquired over the past four years. The largest, Austin-based SPS PoolCare, has completed more than 190 acquisitions since 2021, according to PitchBook data.
But PE’s interest in swimming pools is less about digging expensive holes and more about servicing them once they are built.
Pools need chemicals, cleaning, pumps, heaters, repairs and renovation. There are about 5.5 million pools in the US, propping up a $62 billion servicing market, according to the Pool & Hot Tub Alliance. Maintenance and minor repairs made up 64% of pool-product sales last year, new construction only 14%.
The company’s buyers, Dansons Capital Group—created after Thiessen sold grilling equipment supplier Pit Boss Grills in 2023—Accrual Equity Partners, and commercial pool builder Hydro Construction plan to help Shasta expand its maintenance and repair business, with the eventual aim of turning it into a broader home-services business.
The builder of a pool “can win that customer over for life from the initial transaction,” said Jacob Tilzer, founder and managing partner of Accrual.
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Roll-up, roll-up
PE has already done the roll-up playbook with heating, ventilation and air conditioning businesses, pest control, lawn care and garage doors. The largest platforms in those predecessors now attract multi-billion-dollar bids. In February this year, for instance, Blackstone agreed to pay about $2.5 billion for HVAC, plumbing and electrical services business Champions Group.
The best residential services assets can trade in the high teens to more than 20-times EBITDA, said Eric Van Dam, a managing director on the services & industrials team at investment bank Piper Sandler. Pool platforms are smaller. Many generate between $15 million and $30 million in EBITDA, a range that attracts middle-market funds looking to build them up to a size that makes them attractive to larger buyers, Van Dam said.
Troy Hazard, the former chairman of global pool and spa care franchise Poolwerx, said he fielded interest from 46 PE firms before taking money from growth equity investor Norwest in 2022. He still hears from private-equity firms “every other week.”
“Everyone realized, well, we’ve got the handyman, we’ve got the lawnmower guy, we’ve got the window cleaning guy,” Hazard said. “We haven’t got the pool.”
New pool construction depends heavily on housing turnover, interest rates and homeowners’ appetite for large discretionary purchases. But “once you have a pool, you can’t defer the spend,” said John Tisera, chief executive of Azureon, a Michigan roll-up platform owned by buyout shop O2 Investment Partners. The average American swimming pool is more than 23 years old, and Tisera estimates one customer can generate $200,000 to $300,000 over 20 years.
The predictability of pool maintenance is reflected in pricing. Pool construction companies trade at around five to seven times EBITDA, said Matt Spain, a senior managing director at investment bank B Riley Securities. Maintenance businesses can fetch “eight to 10, maybe even a little higher”, he added.
Pool-service companies tend to retain 80% to 85% of their customers each year, Van Dam said. Customers often pay up front, while supplier terms can run 30 to 45 days.
If you can make yourself the “first and only call” when repairs are required, you can generate the kind of free cash flow more associated with a software business, Van Dam said.
Windshield time
Selecting a platform investment is tricky and in some ways, counterintuitive.
All else equal, a company with 1,000 weekly customers across 40 miles can be worth less than one with 500 inside 10 miles, said Mike Dudek, director with buy-side adviser Third Coast Capital Advisors. Due to added “windshield time,” the hours spent driving between jobs.
Density can cut both ways. In parts of Florida, a technician might service 20 pools on one street. This is efficient, but it invites price competition. “Some guy said he wanted to go clean pools, and he’s only going to charge 100 bucks, and the market rate is 200,” said Jack Nelson, CEO of Skimmer, a software company that caters to the swimming pool industry.
Texas, where pools are larger and farther apart, often supports better pricing.
Tisera’s Azureon opted to move to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, rolling up 13 businesses in a region where swim season can last just four months of the year. Winter creates another revenue cycle, according to Tisera. Openings and closings bring routine work, freezing temperatures can damage heaters and liners, and the customer base skews wealthy.
“The Sun Belt doesn’t give you as many chances at bat for those higher average ticket remodels and renovations,” he said.
Not interested in diving in
“Nationally, every pool company is probably getting called” by PE firms, Dudek said.
Yet for now, the response is tepid. Thirty-eight percent of 1,600 pool professionals surveyed by Skimmer said they would reject a PE pitch. Another 55% were neutral. Skimmer has spent the last two years building its software product for consolidators who “need more data, better reporting” to execute roll-ups in the sector, said Nelson.
But the person driving the truck might still matter more than technology.
“Private equity has made some mistakes when they come in day one,” said Tisera, adding that Azureon makes a point of keeping the brand names of the businesses it acquires. “They let their owners leave, and then all their people get really nervous.”
After all, until we upload ourselves into the simulation, the technician still has to show up to fix that hole.
This article originally appeared on PitchBook News
