Ames Linen Service adds clients, employees through an acquisition

CORTLAND — Ames Linen Service, a family-owned, commercial-laundry company, used an acquisition this past spring to add employees and 400 accounts to its customer list. 

The firm, which also highlights its sustainable practices on its website, operates in a 42,000-square-foot building at 67 Huntington St. in Cortland. The company owns its facility.

Ames Linen purchased another “independently operated laundry” company and brought all the work to Cortland, says Johanna Ames, president of Ames Linen Service and the 4th generation of her family to lead the business.

She declined to name the Central New York firm, citing the competition in the industry. 

The transaction closed April 1. Ames declined to disclose the acquisition cost or how the firm financed it. 

The two companies had “lots of symmetry,” says Ames. 

“It certainly provides stability … and hopefully a reasonable, long-term future for the company to keep going,” she says. 

The transaction represented a succession plan for the other company’s owner and followed “several years” of conversation, according to Ames.

Eight employees from the acquired firm joined Ames Linen Service, she says.

In the transaction, Ames Linen also acquired the other company’s customer list and equipment.

The acquisition resulted in 400 new clients, bringing the Ames Linen customer base to nearly 1,000 accounts, she says.

Company investment

The acquisition was part of an overall $3 million investment in Ames Linen’s operations during the first two quarters of 2015. 

“I had to increase the production capacity of the plant to handle the additional customers and volume,” says Ames.

Ames Linen added new equipment, material-handling infrastructure, and vehicles.

The firm created 31 new jobs on April 1, including 25 in production and six new customer-service positions, says Ames. 

The company currently employs 80 full-time workers. Ames doesn’t anticipate adding new employees in 2016.

Ames declined to disclose revenue totals, but says she expects 40 percent revenue growth in 2015. The company generated 15 percent sales growth in 2014 compared to 2013, she says.

Ames Linen Service services health-care clients, including hospitals, long-term care facilities, assisted living, and rehabilitation facilities. It also has clients in the food and beverage and hospitality sectors. The customer base is comprised of 40 percent from the health-care industry and 60 percent from the food and beverage sector.

The firm’s customers include the Brae Loch Inn in Cazenovia, Cortland Regional Medical Center, and the Skaneateles Country Club, according to the Ames Linen website.

Ames refers to its industry as “textile rental,” while acknowledging that others refer to the same sector as “commercial laundry.” 

“We own all the linens, we don’t wash what other people own,” she notes. 

Sustainable practices

“We’re the ultimate green industry because we’re servicing re-usable products,” Ames contends. 

She cites a restaurant that uses cloth napkins instead of paper napkins. “We’re reducing the waste going to landfills just naturally through the products that we’re renting to the customers,” she notes.

Ames Linen uses energy-efficient lighting throughout its plant. It also has a waste-water heat reclamation system. 

“We strip the energy out of the waste water before we send it to the sewer and then we’re able to transfer that heat into the incoming clean city water, which significantly reduces the amount of natural gas that we have to use to heat it up the rest of the way,” says Ames.

Health-care soiled linen bags are recycled products, says Ames. 

Ames Linen has a baler on site and all that plastic gets taken out, melted down, reground and then made into new bags. 

The company also uses a “continuous batch washing system,” according to its website. It now uses less than a gallon of water per pound of laundry, which is a “significant” achievement, Ames says.