Primoris Acquires St. Louis Union Contractor PayneCrest Electric

What happened

Primoris Services Corporation announced on March 31, 2026, that it had agreed to acquire PayneCrest Electric, Inc., a union electrical contractor based in St. Louis, Missouri, in an all-cash transaction valued at $422 million. The deal closed on May 1, 2026. Weil, Gotshal & Manges served as Primoris's legal counsel, and Lewis Rice represented PayneCrest.

Purchase price and payment structure

The $422 million was the value Primoris announced. Its second-quarter filing reports preliminary total purchase consideration of $437.5 million, all in cash. PayneCrest held $32.8 million in cash at closing, which puts the deal at approximately $404.7 million net of cash acquired. At announcement, Primoris said $400 million would come from borrowings under an amended credit agreement with its existing bank group; the filing says the price was funded with term loan borrowings and cash on hand.

Primoris's preliminary allocation assigns $128.1 million to PayneCrest's customer relationships, $46.4 million to its trade name and $24.9 million to backlog. The filing says those values may still change during the one-year measurement period.

The seller

PayneCrest combines two companies founded in the 1950s. Walter Murphy and Clarence Schmidt founded Crest Electric in 1953. In 1954, Louis Payne set up the Saginaw Valley Division of Motor City Electric in Flint, Michigan, and later moved it to St. Louis, where it became Payne Electric. David Payne acquired Payne Electric in 1985 and bought Crest Electric in 2000 to form PayneCrest Electric. The company expanded nationally in 2010.

PayneCrest has more than 600 employees. It handles electrical construction, design-build, engineering, prefabrication, communications and ongoing service and maintenance. Its customers are in the industrial, data center, power, automotive and commercial markets. Its work is rooted in the Midwest and extends nationally. Projects include Meta data centers in Springfield, Nebraska, the Washington University School of Medicine Neuroscience Research Building in St. Louis, and the New Market and Willowbrook solar projects in Ohio. Primoris described it as a contractor that has kept multi-decade relationships with its customers for more than 70 years.

Ryan Freeman is PayneCrest's chief executive. "Joining Primoris is a tremendous opportunity for our employees and customers," he said.

The buyer

Primoris is a Dallas-based company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It provides engineering, construction and maintenance services to utility, energy and renewables markets in the United States and Canada. Its work includes utility-scale solar, power delivery, communications, power generation and transportation infrastructure. PayneCrest is now part of Primoris's Energy segment.

In its announcement, Primoris said the deal "increases the Company's exposure to the high-growth data center services market and expands opportunities for integrating its industrial and renewables businesses with complementary electrical construction capabilities." Koti Vadlamudi, president and chief executive, called it an "extension into electrical construction services." He said it gives Primoris "the opportunity to expand our geographic footprint and customer relationships while adding to the range of services we can deploy across our end markets."

What this means for electrical contracting owners

Primoris did not add another shop to an electrical platform. A public contractor whose markets are utility, energy and renewables bought an established union electrical contractor, and PayneCrest's data center and solar work lines up with the data center and renewables exposure Primoris cited when it announced the deal. In Primoris's preliminary accounting, the customer relationships PayneCrest built over decades carry more value than its trade name and backlog combined.

For owners of a union electrical contractor with data center, power or industrial work, this deal shows that the buyers can include large infrastructure companies coming from outside the trade, not only electrical platforms. OffDeal tracks who is buying across electrical and other trade services businesses.

OffDeal is an advisory firm that helps lower-middle-market business owners sell with confidence. Reach out to learn more about our expertise with electrical businesses in Missouri.

Own a electrical business with $5M–$100M in revenue? We’re glad to give you an honest read on what it’s worth and who would buy it — no pitch, no pressure. Get a free valuation.

Source: Primoris Services Corporation - https://ir.prim.com/news-and-events/news-releases/2026/03-31-2026-134516338