Jeff Helminski, co-founder and managing partner of Auxo Investment Partners in Grand Rapids, successfully leveraged his atypical experience and path in multiple deals last year. Helminski has a diverse professional background, including experience in manufacturing engineering, high-volume assembly operations management and real estate development. His firm, Auxo, now specializes in investing in and growing founder- and family-owned industrial, manufacturing and business services companies.
Auxo Investment Partners has acquired Andrie LLC in partnership with the founding Andrie family. The company, led by CEO Stan Andrie Jr., has a fleet of 19 vessels with a cargo capacity of over 125,000 tons and has approximately 150 employees. Andrie was founded in 1988 by Barbara Andrie, mother of the current CEO, and is headquartered in Muskegon, MI (www.andrietg.com).
Investment firm Auxo Investment Partners moved deeper into the marine transportation business with an investment in Muskegon-based Andrie. Auxo acquired a majority stake in Andrie, a 31-year-old, family-owned company that operates a fleet of 19 tugs and barges throughout the Great Lakes, from Chicago to the Saint Lawrence Seaway, that transport bulk goods such as liquid asphalt, cement, light oil petroleum products and calcium chloride.
M/G Transport Services, a division of Auxo Marine Holdings, announced May 2 that John Binion has been appointed CEO, succeeding Jack Lordo. Binion has served as a lead director of the M/G Transport Services board since its December 2017 acquisition by Auxo Marine.
“I am excited to take on this new role and work closely with the talented team at M/G, which for decades has provided the highest level of customer service in the inland barge industry,” Binion said. “I look forward to partnering with the management team to build on the company’s impressive legacy and create new opportunities for our employees, customers and vendors. I also want to thank Jack Lordo for his more than 30 years of service as he has been a big part of making M/G the market leader that it is today.”
Private investment firm Auxo Investment Partners announced today that it is partnering with the Andrie family with an investment in Andrie LLC, a Michigan-based Jones Act bulk transporter of specialty products including liquid asphalt, cement, light oil petroleum products, and calcium chloride throughout the Great Lakes. The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, marks Auxo’s sixth acquisition in 16 months, and builds on the firm’s December 2017 acquisition of M/G Transport Services, a leading dry-bulk transportation and logistics company based in New Orleans.
MUSKEGON, MI – Growth is on the horizon for a Muskegon-based, family-owned Great Lakes shipping company now that a majority share was sold to a private investment firm. Andrie Inc. just got a growth-inducing cash infusion from the sale of a majority stake in the company to Grand Rapids-based Auxo Investment Partners, Auxo managing partner Jeff Helminski told MLive/Muskegon Chronicle.