Hous­ton, Octo­ber 18, 2021 – Chi­ron Finan­cial LLC (“Chi­ron”) today announced it has been award­ed Ener­gy Deal of the Year under $1 bil­lion from The M&A Advi­sor for its out­stand­ing achieve­ment in secur­ing 100% financ­ing for SMG Indus­tries’ acqui­si­tion of 5J Trans­porta­tion Group. Chiron’s assis­tance with oppor­tu­ni­ty pre­sen­ta­tion and its con­tacts with more than 400 poten­tial lenders and investors posi­tioned Chi­ron to close the trans­ac­tion with­out any equi­ty con­tri­bu­tion from SMG’s lega­cy business. 

The Feb­ru­ary 2020 pur­chase of 5J Trans­porta­tion Group, an oil­field ser­vices heavy haul, logis­tics and mobi­liza­tion com­pa­ny, by Hous­ton-based SMG Indus­tries (OTCOB: SMGI) was the company’s entrée into trans­porta­tion ser­vices as part of a buy and build acqui­si­tion strat­e­gy for its new trans­porta­tion ser­vices divi­sion. Chi­ron was unde­terred by the volatile oil and gas mar­ket, deeply dis­tressed oil­field ser­vices indus­try and scarci­ty of equi­ty investors when it was engaged in Sum­mer 2019, and Chi­ron rapid­ly made mul­ti­ple adjust­ments to the financ­ing struc­ture in response to weak­en­ing busi­ness con­di­tions. SMG has con­tin­ued to oper­ate and build its busi­ness despite the chal­lenges of the pan­dem­ic and the indus­try cycle.

Joe Page, Bill Her­ring­ton and Daniel Mar­tinez with Hous­ton-based Amerisource Busi­ness Cap­i­tal, a non-bank finance com­pa­ny, pro­vid­ed a revolv­ing cred­it facil­i­ty and an equip­ment term loan. David Levy, Renee Renate LaCroix and Igor Zelid­man with Uti­ca Leaseco, LLC, a non-bank spe­cial­ized equip­ment financ­ing com­pa­ny based in Rochester Hills, Michi­gan, led the financ­ing for a first lien equip­ment loan. Oth­er third-par­ty financiers, investors, and advi­sors includ­ed Lar­ry Glenn, ener­gy prac­tice head, and Kate­lyn Van Sick­el, asso­ciate attor­ney, at Crady Jew­ett McCul­ley & Houren LLP, a diver­si­fied law prac­tice in Hous­ton; cor­po­rate attor­ney Mario Taleri­co with Honig­man, a busi­ness law firm based in Detroit, Michi­gan; buyer’s coun­sel Jody Samuels; equip­ment apprais­er Aaron Wal­ton with Gor­don Broth­ers, a glob­al leader in asset val­u­a­tions; and seller’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Stren­gle with Exit Part­ners, an inde­pen­dent M&A invest­ment bank­ing firm in Plano, Texas. 

The inter­nal trans­ac­tion team at SMG Indus­tries was led by Matt Flem­ing, chief busi­ness devel­op­ment offi­cer, and Jim­my Frye, CEO of pri­vate­ly held 5J Truck­ing based in Pales­tine, Texas. Chiron’s inter­nal trans­ac­tion team includ­ed man­ag­ing direc­tors Jay Kra­soff, Todd Hass and Michael Miller and vice pres­i­dents Eddie Gau­ti­er-Winther and Johann Bösch-Salcedo. 

“Chi­ron is hon­ored to receive this cov­et­ed award from The M&A Advi­sor, which has a rich his­to­ry of rec­og­niz­ing the world’s lead­ing M&A, financ­ing and restruc­tur­ing pro­fes­sion­als through its annu­al awards pro­gram,” said Scott John­son, prin­ci­pal and man­ag­ing direc­tor at Chiron. 

“The group of third-par­ty investors, financiers and advi­sors with which Chi­ron had the priv­i­lege of work­ing was instru­men­tal in the suc­cess­ful struc­tur­ing of this trans­ac­tion, and we can take col­lec­tive pride in this award from The M&A Advi­sor,” said Jay Kra­soff, also a prin­ci­pal and man­ag­ing direc­tor at Chiron.

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About Chi­ron Finan­cial LLC

Chi­ron and its affil­i­ates com­prise a FIN­RA-reg­is­tered invest­ment bank­ing orga­ni­za­tion that arranges pri­vate place­ments of debt and equi­ty cap­i­tal, and pro­vides finan­cial advi­so­ry ser­vices relat­ing to merg­ers, acqui­si­tions, and divesti­tures for mid­dle mar­ket com­pa­nies. Chi­ron rais­es growth cap­i­tal and restruc­tur­ing cap­i­tal, and it assists with refi­nanc­ing, finan­cial restruc­tur­ing (both inside and out­side of Chap­ter 11), and oth­er spe­cial sit­u­a­tions. Clients include com­pa­nies in a wide breadth of indus­tries includ­ing oil and gas, oil­field ser­vices, mid­stream and down­stream ener­gy, pow­er, health­care, man­u­fac­tur­ing, agri­cul­ture, retail, build­ing prod­ucts, advanced mate­ri­als, real estate, spe­cial­ty finance, and non-profits.

Con­tact: Lau­ren O’Leary
Phone: (917) 488‑8991
Email: loleary@​chironfinance.​com