Provided
ERW Site Solutions constructed this amenity center at the Mantua community in Van Alstyne.
Some eight months ago, ERW Site Solutions, the quickly expanding Fort Worth-based company, sold to its employees.
Terms were not disclosed, but with the close of the ESOP sale, ERW employees now own all of the shares of the company and its subsidiaries.
ERW Site Solutions is an integrated construction management company specializing in engineered retaining wall construction, landscape and irrigation design, concrete foundation and hardscape construction, and amenity center construction. ERW serves the residential, commercial and municipal markets throughout Texas.
ButcherJoseph & Co., a boutique investment banking firm based in St. Louis, advised ERW on the transaction.
Jack Matz had been the majority owner of ERW since the company’s founding in 2015.
“When we looked at all the options, management and ownership really wanted to focus on what was the most important to them, and that was creating a legacy business, creating longevity, creating protection and enrichment for their employees,” said Joe Stewart, the company’s VP of sales and marketing. “This business is built on the back of those employees who are out there every day in the field. And how best was it to protect that legacy and to reward that? And that's when we started exploring an ESOP transaction.”
ERW Site Solutions joins the list of employee-owned companies in Texas. The most recent counting found 324 in Texas, including Fort Worth-based Higginbotham. Five Texas companies are among the 100 largest ESOPs in the country, according to the National Center for Employee Ownership. Brookshire Grocery Company, based in Tyler, is the largest of those five.
Nationwide, there are more than 6,500 ESOP companies. The construction industry has the third-most behind manufacturing and professional services, making up 16% of ESOP-owned companies.
“It seems like there’s a lot of momentum” for ESOPs, said Rick Hennessy, director at ButcherJoseph & Co. “Anecdotally, the conversation is increasing. I think it aligns with societal trends around retirement security and income inequality.”
Yet, ESOP sales have remained statistically flat over the past two decades, said Hennessy, who added that typically business owners believe private equity, a sale to a competitor, or keeping the business in the family are the only three options. There simply isn’t awareness.
“I think that drives a lot of it. I think also, too, that private equity has been such a pervasive buyer of businesses. They pay really well, and they pay mostly in cash. That’s attractive.”
Generally, an ESOP transaction provides some cash at close, but that is only part of the overall transaction.
ESOPs have shown to significantly enhance employee engagement, satisfaction, and security by making workers partial owners of the company, according to an analysis by Kiplinger. This shared ownership means employees benefit directly from the company’s success, as their net worth increases with company stock value. This motivates them to invest more effort, solve problems proactively, and stay committed long-term. ESOPs also lead to higher job satisfaction by giving employees a voice in company decisions, often resulting in better wages, retirement benefits, and reduced risk of layoffs during economic downturns.
Additionally, ESOPs promote job security and help build personal wealth. By prioritizing long-term stability over short-term gains, ESOP-owned companies are less likely to relocate or cut jobs, keeping employment local and supporting community development. Employees gain a company-funded retirement plan without needing to contribute out of pocket, helping bridge the wealth gap —especially for low- to moderate-income workers. On average, ESOP participants accumulate substantially more retirement wealth, making employee ownership a powerful tool for financial well-being and community resilience.
ERW Site Solution’s beginnings were in a retaining wall company Randy O’Neal took over from his late stepfather. Matz recapitalized the business in 2015, forming today’s company. O’Neal today is president and COO of the company.
The company has grown significantly organically and through acquisition.
Since 2018, ERW has acquired four other companies — LandTec, a landscaping and irrigation company in Austin; Ratliff Hardscape in Lewisville; Scott Miller Engineering, which the company rebranded as DesignBuild Consulting; and Kaufman Concrete. The company has between 425-450 W2 employees.
Since the beginning of those acquisitions, ERW has grown from a $20 million company to this year’s objective of $400 million, Stewart said.
Just last year, ERW Site Solutions earned a place among the Dallas Business Journal’s 50 fastest-growing companies in Fort Worth-Dallas. The “Fast 50” is an annual competition that ranks DFW’s fastest-growing private and public businesses with annual revenue between $10 million and $1 billion, based on three-year revenue growth.
“The great thing about some of what Jack brought to the business was an institutional mindset,” said Simon Martin, ERW executive vice president and chief strategy officer. “He knew that there were certain components to a business that made them successful — for instance, having full-time on-staff general counsel and CFO. We left the controllers in place at each acquisition. There's a layer of corporate management with a lot of business acumen in different industries that led the strategy and growth of the company and allowed operations to be run primarily by the teams in place at those acquisitions. So a lot of those pieces were already in place, which led to a very smooth transition to becoming an employee-owned company.”