Prime Electric, a leading provider of electrical services headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, has acquired Scholes Electric, an electrical contractor serving New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The acquisition represents Prime Electric’s first since Truelink Capital, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, partnered with the business earlier this year, and marks a significant step in Prime’s continued geographic expansion eastward from its established presence across Northern California, Washington, and Oregon.
Scholes Electric, founded in 1954 and headquartered in Piscataway, New Jersey, serves commercial and industrial clients across New Jersey and Pennsylvania with a long-standing reputation for quality and technical expertise in electrical installation, maintenance, and repair, including complex electrical and low-voltage systems. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Prime Electric serves a diverse range of private sector clients in high-growth markets including healthcare, biopharma, data centers, and renewables. The combination with Scholes provides Prime with a meaningful foothold in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, markets that align with those same high-growth sectors and offer significant opportunity for an operator with Prime’s scale and capabilities. Edward Welsh, CEO of Scholes Electric, will continue to lead the Scholes business, working closely with Prime’s leadership team to ensure continuity for employees, customers, and partners. Truelink Capital’s investment thesis focuses on businesses in industrials and business services where operational improvement and strategic acquisitions can drive long-term value creation.
Prime CEO Bob Ledford characterized Scholes as exactly the kind of partner the company looks for — deeply respected in its market, customer-focused, and committed to excellence — and described the combination as creating a well-positioned electrical contracting platform with national reach and scale. Scholes CEO Welsh noted that the partnership accelerates Scholes’s growth strategy and enhances its ability to deliver complex, high-quality electrical solutions at scale that would have been difficult to achieve as a standalone regional operator.
The deal reflects a broader wave of consolidation in the electrical contracting sector as platforms backed by private equity seek to build national reach and the operational scale to compete for large, complex projects in high-growth markets where single-state or regional operators are increasingly disadvantaged by limited workforce depth and geographic coverage.
Support: Deloitte Corporate Finance acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Scholes.
KEY QUOTES:
“Scholes has built an exceptional reputation over many decades, and their strong presence in New Jersey and Pennsylvania provides a meaningful foothold in an important and growing region. Together, we are even better positioned to serve our customers with enhanced scale, capabilities, and local expertise.”
Bob Ledford, CEO, Prime Electric
“By joining forces with Prime, we are further strengthening our ability to support our customers’ evolving needs. This partnership accelerates our growth strategy and enhances our ability to deliver complex, high-quality electrical solutions at scale.”
Edward Welsh, CEO, Scholes Electric
