Sterling Investment Partners is out marketing for its third fund and is seeking $700 million for the pool.

Sterling Investment Partners has closed the acquisition of Service Logic through the acquisition of MSHC. Service Logic is a US provider of preventive and predictive maintenance services and related energy sustainability services for heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. Credit Suisse’s Customized Fund Investment Group co-invested with Sterling, GE Capital led the senior credit facility and Babson Capital and PNC Erieview Capital provided subordinated debt for the transaction.

Sterling Investment Partners has sold Cambridge International to Industrial Growth Partners. Financial terms weren’t announced. The deal closed on April 10. Cambridge makes custom-built conveyor belts and related woven metal mesh solutions. News of the deal was announced by Harris Williams, which provided financial advice to Sterling. Derek Lewis, John Klim and Ben Ross led [...]

Sterling Investment Partners is in preliminary discussions with limited partners about raising its third fund, Buyouts reported Thursday, citing two sources. The firm will start raising the fund in the first half of the year and seek $500 million to $600 million, one of the sources said. The firm is working with Park Hill Group [...]

Thoma Bravo LLC announced an agreement July 19 to sell Flexera Software, a company that provides software licensing services, in a deal that promises to generate a return of close to 5x, according to Orlando Bravo (pictured), a managing partner at the Chicago-based buyout shop, sister magazine Buyouts has reported. Flexera is the third exit announced [...]

Sterling Investment Partners has agreed to buy Excelligence Learning Corp. from Thoma Bravo. Financial terms were not announced. Monterey, Calif.-based Excelligence develops, distributes and makes educational products and supplies for child care programs, preschools, elementary schools, and consumers. CORRECTION: Thoma Bravo acquired Excelligence in 2006 and will realize an IRR of 2.5x, ROI of 2.5x and an IRR of 22%, a spokesman says. William Blair & Co. advised Excelligence.

If you were a company with increasing year-over-year losses in the midst of a recession, would you choose to emerge from bankruptcy with 9.1x leverage or with 3x leverage?

Might not sound like much of a choice, but that’s because you’re not U.S. Shipping Partners, the long-haul marine transportation business once bestowed with the cursed Buyouts Deal of the Year Award. The company, which filed for bankruptcy in May, has actually chosen the 9.1x leverage option. Former owner Sterling Investment Partners lost its entire $40 million equity investment and has removed itself from the situation entirely.

This is why we now give awards based on exits and not deals.

Yet another recipient of a Buyouts Deal of the Year awards has soured. Sterling Investment Partners’ award-winning take-private target, U.S. Shipping, filed for bankruptcy. (See below for a list of other cursed winners.)

The deal was named small market deal of the year in 2002, the year Sterling purchased the oil transportation services business of Amerada Hess Corp. for $198 million. U.S. Shipping paid approximately 5.5 times pro forma EBITDA and had a number of co-investors to its $40 million equity stake, according to the accompanying story.

Buyouts deemed this deal a winner because of the special five-year revenue guarantee it had locked in with the seller. It seems like a good plan, except Sterling probably didn’t expect things to turn sour after that five-year period ran out.

U.S. Shipping Partners, an oil transportation services business backed by Sterling Partners, has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection. Press release: U.S. Shipping Partners, L.P. announced today that it is voluntarily seeking relief to reduce and restructure its debts under chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court for [...]