Project Tailwind
Snapshot
- Sector: Industrials / environmental services
- Headquarters: Greater Toronto–Hamilton Area, with customers across Canada and the U.S.
- Founded: 40+ years in operation
- Team: 10-15 employees
- Revenue: ~$14M
- EBITDA: ~$2.5M
- Status: Exclusive LOI signed, diligence underway, close targeted for early Q1 2027
The business
Project Tailwind designs, supplies, installs and services the systems that keep industrial plants running clean. These include scrap and trim removal, dust collection and extraction, baling and material conveying. Customers are large operators in corrugated packaging, printing, distribution, records management and food and beverage. When one of these systems goes down, so does the production line.
The company acts as a turnkey partner. It engineers the solution, installs it on site, and then supports it for the life of the system with parts, service, filters and consumables. It is the exclusive Canadian dealer for a leading European dust-extraction manufacturer.
Why we like it
- Mission-critical, regulated need. Dust and scrap handling is essential to plant uptime, fire safety and worker health. Customers buy on reliability and compliance, not just price.
- Nearly five decades of customer relationships. Most revenue comes from returning customers, including multi-site North American packaging groups that use the company across many plants.
- Protected product position. Exclusive Canadian rights to a premium European equipment line set it apart from lower-cost competitors.
- Growing aftermarket. Parts, service and consumables build a recurring base under the project business.
- Customer-funded model. Progress billing on projects means customers fund the work as it happens, which keeps working-capital needs low.
- U.S. footprint already in place. A majority of revenue is already U.S.-based, which gives a proven platform for further expansion.
- Strong pipeline. The company enters the year with a substantial book of open projects.
Our plan
- Build a professional finance and reporting function to support a larger business
- Grow recurring service contracts and aftermarket revenue across the installed base
- Add U.S. sales capacity to deepen relationships with existing multi-site customers
- Extend and broaden key OEM distribution relationships
- Pursue tuck-in acquisitions in adjacent industrial air and material-handling services
Transaction
This is a partial exit for the management team. They will roll equity into the new structure, and the existing team will stay on to run the business. The deal is to be financed with senior debt from Canadian chartered and cooperative banks, alongside PE Gate equity.