Horwitz Receives Strategic Investment from Truelink Capital as Svoboda Exits

What happened

On June 15, 2026, Los Angeles private equity firm Truelink Capital announced a definitive agreement to make what it called "a significant investment" in Horwitz, a Minneapolis mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) contractor serving complex commercial and industrial facilities across the Twin Cities. Truelink said on July 1 that it had completed the strategic investment. Chicago-based Svoboda Capital Partners has since said it exited its investment in Horwitz following the company's recapitalization by Truelink. CEO Matt Dekkers and the management team will continue to lead the business and retain a significant ownership stake. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The company

Harry S. Horwitz, a plumber, founded the company in downtown Minneapolis in 1918. It moved from plumbing construction into full mechanical systems in the 1980s, and over the years it has added automation, insulation, and industrial ventilation through acquisitions. Its Minneapolis work includes several of Target Corporation's corporate buildings, among them Target Plaza, through a relationship with Target that began in the 1990s, and two 17-story Wells Fargo office towers in Downtown East, the largest office project in Minneapolis since 1992.

Horwitz now provides HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and building automation work through three service lines: service and maintenance, retrofit and upgrades, and new systems. It has approximately 720 employees, including 540 technicians, and handles more than 10,000 engagements a year. Its work is mainly for data center, medtech, semiconductor fabrication, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing customers.

Fredrikson & Byron served as legal counsel to Horwitz and Svoboda.

The buyer

Truelink Capital invests in industrial and business services companies and partners with management teams, corporate sellers, and founders. Co-founder and managing partner Luke Myers described the plan as "Truelink's value creation playbook of driving operational improvements and accelerating growth through strategic investments and a robust M&A strategy," and called Horwitz "an ideal partner as we look to build a leading and diversified MEP services business."

Since Horwitz, Truelink has completed the acquisition of JT Thorpe Group, a specialty industrial maintenance and thermal management provider, which closed on September 3, 2026.

What changed under Svoboda

Svoboda recapitalized Horwitz in March 2022. At the time, CEO Bill McKoskey and President Stu McIntosh led the company alongside seven other owners, overseeing about 320 employees, roughly 220 of them tradespeople in the field. By November 2024, Dekkers was chief executive, and Horwitz bought Preferred Electric, a commercial and industrial electrical contractor that Clint Kruger founded in 2008. Preferred Electric is a service-disabled veteran-owned business whose clients included the VA Hospital and a semiconductor fabrication company. Kruger joined Horwitz as general manager of the expanded electrical team, which operates as Preferred Electric, a Horwitz Company.

Four years after Svoboda's investment, Horwitz has more than twice the staff it had in 2022. Owners weighing a first sponsor can read our guide on whether to sell a mechanical or HVAC business to private equity.

What this means for mechanical contracting owners

Horwitz has passed between two private equity firms in four years, and the handoff left its operating leadership in place. For Twin Cities electrical and specialty contractors, that makes the 1918 plumbing firm a Truelink-backed company with its own acquisition history, and the Preferred Electric deal is the record of how it has treated a founder it bought. An owner approached by Horwitz has that precedent to point to: a founder kept on to run his trade, and a name kept on the door.

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

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Source: PR Newswire - https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/truelink-capital-announces-investment-in-horwitz-a-leading-provider-of-mep-services-302799967.html