Fourth-Generation Bender Plumbing Supply Joins Hills Distribution Platform

What happened

Hills Distribution, a Meriden, Connecticut, wholesale distributor of plumbing, HVAC and hydronic equipment and supplies, announced on March 30, 2026, that it had partnered with Bender Plumbing Supply, a plumbing and HVAC distributor headquartered in New Haven. Bender joins Plimpton & Hills, Coastal Supply Group and RJ Murray Company on the Hills platform. Max Bender will continue to lead the business as president, alongside the existing executive team. Hills described the deal as a partnership and did not say what stake changed hands. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The company

Bender traces its roots to New Haven Plumbing Supply, which Sam Lewin founded with two partners in 1921. His daughter Alice married Jack Bender in 1942, and in 1946 Bender Plumbing Supply opened at 88 Dixwell Avenue in New Haven. Jack set a rule that family members start in the warehouse and work their way up, and Max Bender came through it, starting as a warehouse associate and driver before moving into sales and branch management. He was named CEO in 2020. The announcement describes Bender as a fourth-generation, family-owned business.

David Bender opened a second location, in Waterbury, in 1977. In 1983 the company opened showrooms in New Haven and Waterbury stocked heavily with Kohler products, as homeowners began choosing fixtures themselves rather than leaving the choice to their plumbers. Showroom and parts-counter locations followed in Bridgeport, Hartford, Stamford and Norwalk between 2003 and 2011, and HVAC supplies joined the wholesale line in 2005. The company now runs six locations across Connecticut, with showrooms along the "Gold Coast" serving both trade professionals and homeowners.

That leaves Bender running two businesses under one name: a wholesale counter supplying plumbing and HVAC materials to contractors, and showrooms selling decorative plumbing, kitchen and bath cabinetry, tile, stone, and lighting to homeowners, architects and designers. The company rebranded as BENDER in 2015, and by 2019 it had won a National Kitchen and Bath Association award for most innovative showroom and five Home Building Industry (HOBI) awards.

"Hills Distribution and Grove Mountain Partners stood out for their integrity, long-term mindset and commitment to supporting our people, customers and brand," Max Bender said.

The buyer

Hills Distribution is backed by Grove Mountain Partners, an Atlanta private equity firm that invests in home service and specialty business service companies. Its founding company is Plimpton & Hills, a Connecticut plumbing and HVAC wholesaler founded more than a century ago, with four generations of the Hills family behind it and more than 20 locations in three states; Grove Mountain announced a majority stake in it in January 2024, with the Hills family keeping equity and a board-level role. In November 2024, Grove Mountain announced the formation of Hills Distribution as a parent company for Northeast plumbing and HVAC distribution and named Ron LaBusch, previously president of distribution at Novia Group, as CEO.

Two New York-based distributors followed in January 2025, among them Coastal Supply Group, a Staten Island supplier founded in 1972 that, like Bender, added kitchen and bath showrooms to its plumbing business. Both companies' leaders stayed in their roles and reinvested equity into Hills. Bender is the platform's second company headquartered in Connecticut, after Plimpton & Hills.

"Bender has built an outstanding business over decades, and we look forward to supporting their continued growth as part of the platform," said Stephen Fraser, then chairman of Hills Distribution and a partner at Grove Mountain.

Since the Bender deal, Hills added PEXUniverse, a Brooklyn e-commerce distributor, in September 2026. The five companies now operate 40 locations across the Northeast.

What this means for plumbing and HVAC distribution owners

With Bender, Hills had assembled four long-established regional distributors, three of them family businesses for generations, and in each earlier deal where it disclosed the structure, the owners kept a stake. Bender, like Coastal before it, brings a kitchen and bath showroom business selling to homeowners and designers alongside its contractor counters, so a Connecticut supply house with a large retail side is squarely the kind of company this platform has added. For that owner, the terms this buyer's record makes worth pressing are how much rollover equity the family keeps and who runs the business afterward; at Bender, a member of the family still runs it. OffDeal covers how buyers approach plumbing and HVAC businesses in more detail.

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Source: PR Newswire - https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hills-distribution-expands-platform-with-addition-of-bender-plumbing-supply-302728707.html