Family office quietly builds a car-wash empire

A US-based family investment group has built a sizable stake in a holding group specializing in buying car-wash centres across America. 

The Pritzker Organization, the Chicago-based investment group of Tom Pritzker and his family, is financing Mammoth Holdings, an Atlanta-based conveyor car wash operator. 

Since 2018, Mammoth has been using Pritzker capital channelled through an Atlanta-based private equity group, Red Dog Equity, to acquire car wash operators across the US. 

Mammoth now operates 46 conveyor car washes under multiple brands in Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Utah, and Tennessee. It recently acquired a car-wash operator in Alabama. 

Mammoth says: “(It) has significant growth capital at its disposal and is actively seeking acquisitions and development opportunities.”

Mammoth adds that it is a pioneer in changing the traditional car-wash business model of pay-as-you-go to a subscription-based service. 

Car-wash operators can be highly profitable businesses, but also capital intensive as the typical conveyor car equipment is high tech and expensive. 

The Pritzker Organization emerged from the original Pritzker & Pritzker law firm set up by Nicholas Pritzker in Chicago 140 years ago, and where the family fortune – one of the most famous in America – began its story. Pritzker & Pritzker developed into a family investment/holding group, particularly under the stewardship of Jay Pritzker who built the Hyatt hotel chain to one of the biggest hotel groups in the world.  

Now run by Jay’s son, Tom, the Organization describes itself as: “neither a private equity fund nor a traditional family office. Our legacy has put us in a position to use our family’s capital to grow businesses of all sizes in a range of industries with a focus on our passion of building long-term platform investments.”

The Organization still has a sizable shareholding in the Hyatt Hotels group, where Tom is executive chairman.