Utegration Has Completed a Majority Recapitalization with Riordan, Lewis & Haden Equity Partners

HOUSTON, December 6, 2016 – GulfStar Group (“GulfStar”) is pleased to announce the majority recapitalization of Utegration, Inc. (“Utegration” or the “Company”) with Riordan, Lewis & Haden Equity Partners (“RLH Equity”). GulfStar served as the exclusive advisor to Utegration throughout the transaction, which closed on October 3, 2016.

Founded in 2008, Utegration is a leading full service SAP consulting and implementation company serving the utility and energy industries. The Company has built a strong reputation in the utility industry and today serves many of North America’s leading electric, gas, and water utilities with proven capabilities to enhance utility customer satisfaction, achieve regulatory mandates for service improvements, provide valuable business intelligence solutions to better manage enterprise assets, and help utilities address the digital transformation of the power grid. Utegration’s deep technical and utility sector expertise has positioned Utegration as a thought leader in the industry, as reflected by its recent recognition by SAP as Partner of the Year for the Utility Industry.

“Our clients are our first priority and we are committed to expanding our capabilities with even more comprehensive and innovative solutions,” said Utegration CEO, Bin Yu. “The industry is undergoing a generational shift with the digital modernization of power grids that interconnect utilities with their customers. The outcome will transform how utilities serve their customers, manage energy usage and generation, and integrate distributed energy resources. Utegration is here to help guide its customers on this journey and to meet the evolving energy demands of the future.”

Kevin Cantrell and Robert Zielinski, Managing Directors at RLH commented, “Utegration is uniquely positioned to help utilities undertake the digital transformation. By combining the power of advanced software, the cloud, and the data now being collected by smart meters, Utegration is enabling utilities to provide dramatically higher service levels to consumer and business customers.”

Zielinski added, “Utegration has developed a culture that promotes continuous learning, embraces diversity, and promotes the professional development of their employees. We look forward to helping the team to build an even more successful future.”

“We are grateful to the team at GulfStar for taking the time to fully understand our business, our culture and our objectives in considering our options. With their assistance and unwavering commitment, we carefully selected RLH Equity as our partner, as they bring tremendous experience in working with leadership teams to build highly successful services based organizations,” Yu said. “RLH shares our vision of embracing both the current and future needs of our clients and truly values and understands that our employees are the key drivers for the future success of Utegration.”

“We are honored to have had the opportunity to work with the Utegration team on this very important transaction. This new partnership with RLH will further support Utegration as it continues to build the premier services, support and solutions provider to the utilities sector, enabling its customers to both manage and benefit from the ongoing digital transformation of utilities worldwide,” said Roshan Gummattira, managing director at GulfStar. “We would like to congratulate the team at Utegration on this very significant step in the company’s evolution and wish them the very best as they continue to build their business.”

The GulfStar team consisted of Managing Directors Colt Luedde and Roshan Gummattira, Vice President Ben Stanton and Analyst Sahil Raj.

About Utegration
Utegration is an industry leader in providing SAP consulting and implementation solutions across the utility sector. The firm is comprised of uniquely experienced systems consultants, engineers, and subject matter experts with particular areas of expertise in customer relationship and billing systems, customer information systems, business intelligence platforms, advanced metering infrastructure, enterprise asset management, and application managed services. Based in Houston, TX, the Company has built a strong reputation in the utility industry among its clients and was recently recognized by SAP as Partner of the Year for the utility industry. Utegration has also been named the Best Place to Work under large company category in 2016 by the Houston Business Journal. For more information about the Company, please visit www.utegration.com.

About RLH Equity
Riordan, Lewis & Haden is a leading private equity firm which invests in high growth enterprises. Focused on companies in the business services, healthcare and government services sectors, RLH has achieved a 30-year track record of success by partnering with passionate business leaders to grow significant companies. The firm provides capital and resources to portfolio companies navigating courses of rapid growth. For more information, please visit www.rlhequity.com.

About GulfStar Group GulfStar is a leading middle market investment bank headquartered in Houston. GulfStar specializes in providing merger and acquisition advisory services, institutional private placements of equity and debt, and general corporate finance advisory services to companies with revenues or enterprise values generally ranging from $25 million to $350 million. Since its formation in 1990, GulfStar has completed more than 650 transactions in 32 states and 15 foreign countries across a variety of industries.

Securities offered through GulfStar Group I, Ltd. an affiliated entity, member FINRA – SIPC.