Skyline Pest Control

Skyline Pest Control has served Southern California from South Orange County for more than two decades, with an account base that skews heavily commercial: health systems, stadiums, shopping centers, and national retail locations across Los Angeles, Orange County, and the surrounding counties. The company has grown every year since founding, built on senior technicians recruited from the industry's biggest names, no call center, and almost no turnover.

Founder Chris Coate has worked since he was 14 and spent three decades in pest control, ranking as the industry's top salesperson nationally before starting Skyline. He ran the company with his wife Tobi, who managed the books, and treated the customer list like a neighborhood: a large share of his golf club's members are Skyline customers. At 65, with the company at its peak, his wife insisted on an exit plan. His conditions were firm: protect the employees, protect the brand, and no sale to another pest control company.

Skyline went to market on Rejigg in mid-January 2026 and the floodgates opened: roughly ten NDAs in the first week and 27 interested buyers within a month. Chris ran the process himself, no sell-side advisor, while Tobi handled every NDA and data request. He got on video with every serious buyer, met the best in person, and narrowed the field to five finalists with LOIs due by the end of February. He accepted an LOI in March and the deal closed in July 2026, about six months from first contact.

Sam Restagno of Golden Spruce Capital, an independent sponsor based 40 minutes up the coast in Malibu, won the deal the old-fashioned way. He put more than 20 hours on the phone with Chris, built the relationship over dinners, and presented his LOI in person. Chris had already cut out-of-state parties, and he chose Sam over a higher offer because he wanted a local, relationship-first owner his employees and customers would actually meet. Sam sees pest control, an industry of some 22,000 mostly small companies, as exactly the kind of fragmented market where a business like Skyline can anchor something bigger.