Allan Breidenbach
U.S. Fence Solutions
Littleton, Colo.
PS100 Rank: 61

Get rich in the niche. That business adage was key to Allan Breidenbach’s decision to target fencing as he and his partners set out to develop the portfolio company U.S. Fence Solutions.

“I had seen the lumber business being picked over, but I wanted to stay in building products,” Breidenbach says. “If you look at what’s happened in fencing, it’s grown so much beyond the fence you put up around the backyard to keep the dog in. We do automatic gates, monument fencing, fencing for prisons and ball fields, and guard rails on interstates. It goes on and on. We do virtually no agricultural fencing. Our expertise is in the technical, decorative outdoor space.”

The U.S. Fence CEO and former vice president of Wisconsin Building Supply, an 11-location subsidiary of US LBM, says, “I still have great respect for US LBM and didn’t want to compete directly with them and jump into something that would be detrimental to them and to my great relationships with so many people.

“I had been thinking about this for a long time. I was actively seeking backing to leave, and I wanted to take the lessons I’d learned at US LBM and apply them to a new venture.”

Breidenbach left US LBM in November 2015 to partner with private equity investment firm Building Industry Partners. They created U.S. Fence as a vehicle for investing in the Denver area–based Split Rail Fence & Supply Company, the leading fence and installation business in Colorado’s Front Range.

With that investment in May 2016, Breidenbach became Split Rail’s president. The company has locations in Littleton and Dacono. “The mantra in our industry is that it’s so hard to find labor,” he says, “so I thought, ’Why don’t we control the labor?’ That’s why I wanted Split Rail, which is the install arm.”

In January, U.S. Fence invested in and recapitalized Dallas-based fencing distributor Binford Supply, one of the largest fencing distributors in Texas. Binford has eight locations in Texas and two in Oklahoma. Now, U.S. Fence is looking at four acquisitions.

“Our preference is to go for things contiguous, but there might be a couple that are a plane ride away,” Breidenbach says. “While my ego would like to tell you we want to go countrywide, we need to evaluate each market carefully. There is an install side and a distribution side, and we don’t want to do both in the same market.”

Breidenbach has big plans for U.S. Fence Solutions. Entering the ProSales 100 with $102 million in sales, he says: “Next year, I want to be on the ProSales 100 as the biggest climber."