On July 21, 2026, Leap Partners announced the acquisition of Central Heat & Air, a residential and light-commercial HVAC service and replacement provider based in Cleveland, Tennessee, in the greater Chattanooga area. Financial terms were not disclosed. Central Heat & Air will continue to operate under its existing brand and local leadership, consistent with Leap’s broader partnership model, with founder Tony Bishop continuing to lead the business through its next phase of growth.
The asset: a four-decade Chattanooga-area HVAC operator
Central Heat & Air has served Cleveland, Tennessee and the surrounding Chattanooga and North Georgia markets for more than four decades, building a reputation for straightforward pricing, trained technicians, and a family-oriented approach to customer service. The company delivers residential and light-commercial heating, cooling, indoor air quality, and installation services across East Tennessee and adjacent North Georgia communities, and was led by Tony Bishop and Larry Gardner prior to the transaction. Its long-tenured presence, recurring maintenance base, and deep local relationships are exactly the characteristics platform acquirers prize in a founder-led home-services business.
Leap Partners: a Southeast home-services build-out
Headquartered in Nashville, Leap Partners is a private equity-backed platform assembling HVAC, plumbing, and electrical businesses across the Southeast, with the stated goal of connecting well-run local operators into a single world-class service provider. Over roughly the last four years, the platform has acquired 34 HVAC, plumbing, and electrical companies across Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Its model pairs capital and shared back-office resources with a commitment to keep local brands, teams, and leadership in place — empowering operators to run with autonomy while gaining the scale advantages of a larger group. In the words of CEO John Cerasuolo, the platform is looking to “support that foundation and help accelerate its growth.”
The Central Heat & Air deal fits a deliberate density strategy. Rather than planting scattered flags, Leap has concentrated its acquisitions across a contiguous Southeast footprint, layering brands into overlapping regional markets where shared recruiting, dispatch, procurement, and marketing can compound. Tennessee has been a repeat focus, and adding an established Chattanooga-area operator deepens the platform’s presence in East Tennessee specifically. The pace of Leap’s activity has been consistent and shows every sign of continuing through its investment period — a cadence that, brand by brand, is building toward a platform of real institutional scale.
Going further down market: the new add-on math
The Central Heat & Air transaction also illustrates a broader shift in how PE-backed HVAC, plumbing, and electrical consolidators are sourcing deals. Like many of its peers, Leap Partners has been moving further down market in the size and scale of the companies it will pursue — in some cases down to roughly $500K of EBITDA. That is a meaningful move from the $1M-plus EBITDA targets that anchored the first wave of trades consolidation.
The reason is competition. A steady influx of new platforms, sponsors, and independent-sponsor entrants has made businesses of size — $1M-plus EBITDA, clean financials, tenured management — scarce and heavily contested. Rather than overpay into that crowded top end, an increasing number of consolidators are building density from smaller, well-run operators, then capturing value through integration and back-office leverage. In practice, $500K to $1.5M of EBITDA has become the new target range for add-ons, particularly in the competitive Sunbelt markets across the Southeast and broader Sun Belt where buyer density is highest.
For Leap specifically, this add-on strategy ladders up to a clear objective: building a Southeast-focused platform of $25M-plus EBITDA that would ultimately be viewed as a highly valued asset for a larger private equity group or national consolidator. Each Chattanooga-area or Tennessee add-on is a building block toward that scale — and the discipline of buying smaller, integratable businesses at reasonable entry multiples is precisely what makes the eventual platform valuation math work.
What it means
For owners of independent HVAC, plumbing, and electrical businesses across the Southeast, the Central Heat & Air deal carries a useful signal: the buyer universe has not only deepened, it has broadened to include companies that a few years ago would have been considered too small to attract institutional interest. If your business generates somewhere in the range of $500K to $1.5M of EBITDA, is well-run, and sits in a competitive Sunbelt market, you are now squarely in the crosshairs of multiple credible platforms — not just one.
That is genuinely good news for sellers, but it raises the stakes on choosing well. When several platforms will all promise to keep your brand, your team, and your local reputation, the real diligence question shifts from whether a buyer will preserve what you built to which one’s capital, systems, and culture will actually move the business forward after closing — and on what terms for you and your people. Headline price is one input; deal structure, rollover economics, autonomy, and post-close support often matter more to the ultimate outcome. Those are exactly the questions worth pressure-testing before signing anything.
Weighing a partnership or exit in HVAC, plumbing, or electrical?
Platforms like Leap Partners are expanding steadily across the Southeast — and increasingly pursuing smaller, well-run businesses than they would have a few years ago. The right structure for an owner is highly situational. We work with owners and acquirers across the trades. Happy to have an honest conversation, no pitch.
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