Optimum Energy Acquires Hussung Mechanical Contractors and HMC Service Company

What happened

Optimum Energy Co. announced on August 12, 2026, that it had acquired Hussung Mechanical Contractors and HMC Service Company, a mechanical contracting and service business based in Louisville, Kentucky. The business will keep operating under its own name as HMC, as part of the Optimum Energy group. Calfee, Halter & Griswold was legal counsel to the Hussung companies, and Fishman Haygood was legal counsel to Optimum Energy and its owner, Bernhard Capital Partners. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The seller

Brothers George and Henry Hussung founded Hussung Mechanical Contractors in 1966 to serve the Kentucky and southern Indiana construction market. David C. Hussung, the chief executive, is the third generation. He describes the founders as his grandfather and his grandfather's brother, who started the company "with a straightforward promise: do quality work, act with integrity, and take care of the customer." William and Cole Hussung are the fourth generation. HMC Service Company, the service side of the business, started in 1986. Corey Cousino is president of the construction side, and Gary Keeling is president of the service side.

The business runs two practices. Hussung Mechanical Contractors does design and construction, including design-build, fabrication, and process piping for new buildings, expansions, and retrofits. HMC Service Company handles HVAC, plumbing, building automation, and refrigeration service, preventive maintenance, and emergency calls. Together they design, install, and service HVAC, plumbing, medical gas, and piping systems. Besides Louisville, it has offices in Lexington and in western and eastern Kentucky.

Its project history is mostly institutional and industrial. It includes Norton Audubon and Norton Brownsboro hospitals, Baptist Health Hardin, and the Louisville VA hospital; a Brown-Forman distillery expansion and Heaven Hill's distillery; a University of Louisville biomedical research facility and a University of Kentucky chemistry and physics building; and Churchill Downs and the Papa Johns headquarters.

The buyer

Optimum Energy was founded in 2005 as a developer of software that optimizes energy use in large HVAC systems, and is headquartered in Seattle. Bernhard Capital Partners agreed to acquire it in June 2023. Bernhard is a private markets investment firm with more than $6 billion in assets under management, focused on infrastructure services and asset platforms in essential sectors.

Optimum Energy now serves healthcare systems, universities, and advanced manufacturers. Its work covers engineering, design, and construction, central utility plant development, operations and maintenance, and performance optimization. It runs proprietary AI built on 20 years of central plant performance data, and a Remote Services team monitors facility systems continuously. Under its Energy-as-a-Service model, customers can pay for the work through off-balance-sheet financing instead of upfront capital. Lisa Roy is chief executive.

The company said adding HMC "expands Optimum Energy's in-house execution capability and strengthens its ability to self-perform across every phase of the infrastructure lifecycle." Its own company description now lists mechanical contracting and field services through HMC among its services. Jonathan de Lauréal, a managing director at Bernhard, said the deal "reflects the strategy behind how we build platforms," which he described as bringing together businesses whose capabilities "create end-to-end offerings with greater scale and reach."

What this means for mechanical contracting owners

The buyer here did not start as a contractor. Optimum Energy began as an HVAC optimization software company and sells energy performance and financing, and HMC is now the part of it that does mechanical construction and service work with its own crews. The customer types line up: the hospitals, universities, and manufacturers Optimum Energy serves are the kinds of facilities that fill HMC's project history. For a commercial mechanical contracting business with that kind of institutional work, this deal puts energy services companies, and the infrastructure investors behind them, in the buyer set. Owners weighing that route can read our guide to selling an HVAC or mechanical business to private equity. For an owner with a similar customer base, the useful question to put to a buyer like this is which of its own customers already appear on the owner's project list.

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 Kentucky.

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Source: Optimum Energy - https://optimumenergyco.com/optimum-energy-announces-acquisition-of-hussung-mechanical-contractors-and-hmc-service-company/