The DFW Pool Industry Roll-Up: A Quiet Consolidation

The backyard pool has long been the crown jewel of the Texas dream. A shimmering rectangle of blue water behind a ranch-style home in Plano, a freeform lagoon tucked into the Hill Country, a sun-drenched oasis off a cul-de-sac in Southlake, for generations, these were built by craftsmen who lived in the same zip codes as their clients, who knew the soil, the sun angles, and the homeowner's name. That world is changing, and it is changing fast.

Over the past five years, a quiet but seismic consolidation has swept through the Dallas–Fort Worth pool construction industry, and a significant share of it can be traced to a single Chicago-based private equity firm: Concentric Equity Partners. Beginning in the summer of 2021, when it recapitalized Plano-based Riverbend Sandler Pools as its platform company, CEP methodically assembled what industry observers describe as the largest residential pool construction and service empire in Texas. Within months, it added Fort Worth's storied Pulliam Pool Builders a company with more than a century of Texas roots, and then, on the last day of 2021, closed its acquisition of Claffey Pools of Southlake, one of the most respected luxury pool brands in the Metroplex. Three marquee names. One holding company. One Chicago balance sheet.

What is playing out in the DFW swimming pool market is the same story being written in HVAC, pest control, veterinary clinics, and residential homebuilding. The playbook is called a "roll-up": a private equity sponsor identifies a fragmented, cash-generating industry, acquires the largest company as a platform, and systematically purchases competitors to achieve market dominance and a profitable exit.

Who Is Concentric Equity Partners? The Chicago Firm Reshaping Texas Pools

Concentric Equity Partners is the direct investing arm of Financial Investments Corporation (FIC), a family office managing more than $2 billion. FIC invests across sectors including waste management, HVAC & plumbing, financial servies, pest control and others. The firm invests primarily in route-based service businesses, the kind that show up at your house regularly and bill you monthly. Residential pool construction, with its high average ticket prices and attached service-and-maintenance contracts, fits that thesis almost perfectly. This is reflected in increaesed investment activity among Riverbend Sandler Pools, Pulliam Pool Builders, Claffey Pools, Crystal Clear Custom Pools, Miller Pools, Hauk Custom Pools and others. When CEP acquired Riverbend Sandler, it was not buying a pool company because it loved pools. It was buying a platform because the numbers made sense.

Adam Lucas, vice president at Concentric Equity Partners, has been the point person on the Texas pool strategy. The firm's goal has been to become a dominant force not just in construction but in the higher-margin service and maintenance segment — the recurring-revenue engine that justifies the entire roll-up thesis.

Riverbend Sandler, Claffey, and Pulliam: What Was Bought and What Was Lost

Riverbend Sandler Pools, headquartered in Plano, had already earned a well-deserved reputation as one of DFW's most productive builders before the CEP acquisition. The acquisition of Claffey Pools, reporting approximately $32 million in residential construction revenue in 2020 alone, gave the growing platform a foothold in the affluent communities of Southlake, Colleyville, and Keller. The acquisition of Pulliam Pool Builders, a brand with over a century of Fort Worth heritage, extended geographic reach westward across the Metroplex.

Since those initial acquisitions, the Riverbend platform has continued acquiring service and maintenance companies across Texas, including expansion into Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. Each acquisition is announced with language emphasizing cultural fit and the retention of founding families. Whether those commitments survive PE's exit preparation is a different question.

Gold Medal Pools and Tenex Capital: DFW's Other PE Pool Giant

Lewisville-based Gold Medal Pools, founded in 1997 and led by CEO Josh Sandler, brought in New York-based Tenex Capital Management in a deal that closed July 21, 2023. Within four months, Gold Medal had made four acquisitions, including Klapprodt Pools of Keller. By mid-2025, Gold Medal Pools, now headquartered in Frisco, had acquired more than 25 pool companies, making it one of the most active roll-ups in the national pool industry, with expansion into Atlanta and other Sunbelt markets.

Josh Sandler has spoken openly about using private equity as a "legacy planning tool." That framing is honest. But legacy planning for founders and optimal outcomes for post-acquisition customers are not the same thing, and the distinction matters when you are deciding who to trust with a six-figure construction project in your backyard.

The D.R. Horton Parallel: When Wall Street Builds Your Home — or Your Pool

D.R. Horton, the Arlington-based homebuilder largest by volume in the United States since 2002, generated $34.3 billion in revenue and closed nearly 85,000 homes in fiscal year 2025. Institutional investors — led by Vanguard Group and BlackRock, together hold more than 84 percent of its equity. Strategic priorities are shaped by Wall Street asset managers, not by the homebuyer in Frisco who just signed a contract.

The parallel is structural. A pool buyer who hires Riverbend Sandler or Gold Medal Pools under their post-acquisition configurations is entering a transaction with a company whose ultimate obligation runs not to the customer's backyard, but to a return on invested capital. The scale is different. The logic is identical.

What Private Equity Ownership Actually Means for the Customer

The forces that now govern acquired organizations — growth targets, acquisition integration, cost synergies, and eventual exit multiples, create pressure that moves in a specific direction: toward volume, speed, and margin optimization. That is not the direction of the customer who wants a bespoke outdoor living space built to last thirty years.

Private equity firms typically target a three-to-seven year hold period before selling. The pressure to prepare for exit shapes every operational decision: standardizing processes, cutting variable costs, reducing reliance on craftsmen whose relationships are not transferable. The pool you commission today may be built under a very different organizational culture than the one that exists when your warranty claim arrives in year four.

The Custom Pool Builder Advantage in Dallas–Fort Worth

The independent, custom pool builder occupies a structurally different position. With no private equity investor demanding a 20 to 25 percent internal rate of return, no acquisition pipeline to fund, and no exit timeline to manage, a custom builder's incentives are aligned almost entirely with the project in front of them. Their reputation is their pipeline. A poorly built pool does not get buried in a quarterly earnings report it sits in a neighbor's backyard for two decades, visible from the street, and costs that builder future work. The accountability is immediate, local, and personal.

Custom builders specify premium equipment packages variable-speed pumps, advanced automation systems, premium plaster finishes, LED lighting architectures and stand behind them with warranties not subject to corporate cost-reduction initiatives. The result is a pool that is better integrated into its site, more durable, and more reflective of the homeowner's individual vision.

Timeline, Price, and the True Cost of Going Custom

A well-run custom shop, precisely because it is not managing fifty simultaneous projects across three counties, often finishes on a more predictable schedule than a large volume builder whose crews are stretched thin. Scheduling chaos, crews double-booked, material deliveries missed, inspections delayed, is far more common in the volume environment. Homeowners who signed contracts expecting pools in four to five months are routinely reporting eight, nine, and ten month completions with PE-owned builders.

A pool quoted by a high-volume operator at $90,000 to $110,000 may carry a custom builder's price tag of $130,000 to $160,000 or more. But the volume price often reflects a standardized shell with equipment packages selected for margin, not longevity. The custom price reflects bespoke design, commercial-grade equipment, a higher concrete shell specification, and a builder available by phone after the sale. Over a twenty-year ownership horizon, the price gap frequently narrows or disappears. If you can afford custom, custom is always king.

What Customers Are Saying: The 8–9 Month Problem

Across Google, Yelp, the Better Business Bureau, and community forums serving DFW suburbs like Plano, Allen, McKinney, Southlake, and Keller, a pattern has emerged that is impossible to dismiss as coincidence: projects taking eight, nine, even ten months to complete, timelines never disclosed during the sales process. What was sold as a summer pool becomes a late-autumn headache, or worse, a winter construction site as children head back to school.

Homeowners describe initial enthusiasm during the sales process followed by a cascade of delays once the contract is signed. Crew scheduling gaps. Materials backordered. Project managers rotating off their file. Phone calls unanswered for days. See the documented accounts below.

Side-by-Side Scorecard: PE-Owned Builder vs. Custom Builder

Visual comparison across 9 key decision factors — scored 1 (poor) to 10 (excellent)

◆ Scores based on composite analysis of industry reporting and consumer review patterns  |  ◆ PE reflects post-acquisition Riverbend Sandler / Gold Medal model  |  ◆ Custom reflects owner-operated independents with 10+ years DFW experience

Pros & Cons: PE-Owned Volume Builder vs. Independent Custom Builder

Private Equity–Owned Pool Builder (Riverbend Sandler / Gold Medal Model)

Bottom Line: The Premium Is Justified for Most DFW Homeowners

For the homeowner building a pool in Westlake, Southlake, Prosper, Argyle, McKinney, Dallas, Flower Mound, Ft. Worth, Celina, Keller, Ponder, Roanoke, Anna, Melissa, Gunter, Texoma, Aubrey, Sanger, Colleyville, Highland Park, University Park, Lakewood McKinney, Fairview or any community where the pool is an architectural statement and a long-term investment, the custom builder's higher upfront cost is almost always justified by superior durability, lower lifetime operating costs, and meaningfully better resale performance. For a purchase of this scale, "adequate" is a low bar.