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Trinity Private Equity Group
Trinity Private Equity Group executes lower-middle-market buyouts in industrial services, manufacturing, and energy infrastructure, led by John Zogg.
Trinity Private Equity Group
Trinity Private Equity Group launched in 2006 as the institutional extension of a family enterprise with deep Texas operating history. Founder John Zogg had already spent years inside industrial services businesses before formalizing a buyout strategy that pairs patient capital with hands-on operational turnarounds. The firm deliberately avoids auctions, preferring bilateral negotiations with retiring founders who want their companies to survive without being dismantled by a platform aggregator. The strategy targets three asset classes — industrial services, specialty manufacturing, and energy infrastructure — with a heavy bias toward asset-intensive businesses in the southern US. Trinity's investment committee approves one to two platform deals per year, typically committing $10 million to $50 million of equity per transaction. The firm structures most acquisitions as majority recapitalizations, keeping existing management when possible but reserving the right to parachute in Zogg-family operating executives. Known portfolio companies include a Houston-based precision machining group and a Gulf Coast industrial water-treatment services provider. A dedicated credit vehicle sits alongside the equity fund, writing term loans and subordinated notes to portfolio companies and select third-party sponsors. The firm operates with fewer than 20 professionals split across its Southlake headquarters and a satellite office in Houston. As of 2024, total committed capital across its active funds exceeds $400 million. In May 2023, Trinity closed its fourth flagship buyout fund at hard cap, a raise that took less than six months without a placement agent (per the firm's official communications, May 2023). The structural distinction is governance that mirrors an operating company, not a financial sponsor. The Zogg family sits permanently on the board of each portfolio company, and Trinity maintains a shared-services group — corporate development, HR, legal, procurement — that scales across the portfolio. This architecture allows the firm to run layoffs and vendor renegotiations on day one without waiting for third-party consultants.
General information
Firm type
Generalist
Year founded
2006
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Southlake
Corporate office
Southlake, TX, United States
Principals
John M. Zogg Jr.
Managing Principal
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
What is Trinity's sourcing model for new deals?
Trinity avoids broad auction processes and instead cultivates proprietary deal flow through operating executives, regional business brokers, and direct relationships with company founders in the southern US. The firm's investment thesis often involves a retiring owner-operator seeking an operational buyer rather than a financial house, where Trinity's in-house industrial expertise becomes the deciding factor.
How are investment decisions made at Trinity?
John Zogg chairs the investment committee, which includes Trinity's senior operating partners and external industry advisors retained on a deal-by-deal basis. The committee requires unanimity for any acquisition over $20 million in equity commitment, a structural safeguard preserved since the firm's first institutional fund.
Does Trinity raise fund commitments or deploy deal-by-deal capital?
Trinity operates a traditional blind-pool fund structure, currently investing out of its fourth vintage. The firm also manages a separate private credit vehicle that writes mezzanine and subordinated debt into both portfolio companies and select sponsor-backed transactions across the energy and industrial sectors.
What is Trinity's typical holding period?
Hold periods range from five to ten years, with no contractual liquidation deadline. Trinity can extend beyond fund life by rolling assets into continuation vehicles, a flexibility the firm built into its LP agreements specifically to accommodate industrial turnaround timelines that frequently exceed standard private equity windows.
Which sectors does Trinity explicitly avoid?
Trinity screens out healthcare services, consumer-facing retail, software-only enterprises, and any business where recurring revenue is not anchored to physical assets. The firm also avoids transactions requiring union renegotiation within the first 24 months of ownership, a hard constraint driven by precedent partnerships in the energy-services workforce.
How is Trinity related to the Zogg family's operating businesses?
The Zogg family maintains separate operating companies in industrial services and energy logistics that are not owned by Trinity funds. However, Trinity portfolio companies routinely contract with these affiliates for services including equipment leasing, environmental compliance, and transportation, creating a vertically integrated ecosystem.
Does Trinity co-invest alongside external institutional LPs?
The firm has selectively co-invested with its limited partners on larger platform transactions. LPs that commit over $25 million to a Trinity fund vintage receive a negotiated right of first offer on co-investment opportunities, though take-up rates have historically been below 30 percent.
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