Transom Capital Group has announced the acquisition of American Driveline Systems (ADS) from American Capital Ltd. ADS is the franchisor of the AAMCO and Cottman Transmission & Total Car Care brands. With nearly 700 franchisee-owned and operated locations, AAMCO and Cottman Transmission are the No. 1 and No. 2 transmission repair retail chains in North America, respectively, operating in 47 states and three provinces.

“This partnership is a key element of our five-year strategic plan to build on the strong foundation of both the AAMCO and Cottman companies,” said Brett Ponton, CEO of ADS. “Transom’s deep experience in distributed stakeholder business models, its aggressive focus on performance and its proven ability to work with management teams were the key reasons in our selection of them as our partner for our next phase.”

“With its current leadership and its network of franchisees we believe that ADS is very well positioned to capitalize on its strategic plan and achieve its future growth objectives,” said Ty Schultz, managing partner at Transom. “Furthermore, we believe there is significant opportunity to build value at ADS and in the automotive aftermarket industry overall through improved positioning and strengthening of the AAMCO and Cottman brands.”

Buy-side advisers to the transaction included: Schwartz Advisors, a leading M&A advisory and strategic planning firm for the automotive aftermarket, O’Melveny & Myers as M&A counsel, and Greenberg Traurig as debt counsel. Prudential Capital Group provided financing for the transaction. Rothschild Inc. served as sell-side M&A advisory.