Dealmakers

Boutique investment bank Kerlin Capital Group beat out three competitors to advise Covina-based Lereta Corp., a tax services and flood hazard determination company, in its sale last week for $210 million to title insurer LandAmerica Financial Group Inc., of Richmond, Va.

Veteran Los Angeles investment banker William Doyle formed six-person Kerlin in 1994. Lereta began looking for a strategic buyer in March. “We felt the price was just outstanding,” said Dale Quarto, Lereta’s chief executive. Lereta will not have to lay off any of its 1,000 employees, including 700 in Los Angeles, because LandAmerica did not have Lereta’s products as a part of the bundled services it sells to the mortgage industry.

Kerlin also recently completed a $75 million private placement for AECOM Technology Corp., an employee-owned engineering services firm in Los Angeles with $2 billion in sales. AECOM aborted an initial public offering in 2002. JPMorgan Partners and Weston Presidio Capital, a private equity firm in San Francisco, made the private placement.

– Kate Berry

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