Harris Williams & Co. Advises York Risk Services Group, Inc. in its Sale to ABRY Partners

RICHMOND, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Harris Williams & Co. announces that the equity interest in York Risk Services Group, Inc. (York), a portfolio company of Odyssey Investment Partners, LLC (Odyssey), has been acquired by ABRY Partners (ABRY). The transaction closed on December 28, 2010. Harris Williams & Co. acted as the financial advisor to York. The transaction was led by Ned Valentine, Derek Lewis, Brent Spiller, Jershon Jones and Corey Benjamin from the firm’s Richmond office.

York is a leading provider of specialized outsourced services to the insurance industry. York provides claims management, specialized loss adjusting, pool administration, managed care, and other risk management services for public entities, industry programs, self-insured entities, and insurance pools, as well as directly to insurance carriers. York participates primarily in specialty niche areas of the highly fragmented outsourced insurance services industry, where the complexity of the claims makes York's industry expertise and focus on client service key differentiating factors. York delivers customized claims solutions for all lines of business, including property, liability, products liability, ocean and inland marine, environmental, transportation and logistics, construction, and workers’ compensation and managed care.

Odyssey, with offices in New York and Los Angeles, is a leading middle market private equity firm with more than $2 billion under management. Odyssey primarily makes control investments, typically in established middle market companies in a variety of industries.

Based in Boston, ABRY is a private equity investment firm focused solely on media, communications, business and information services investments. Since 1989, ABRY has completed more than $21 billion of leveraged transactions and other private equity and mezzanine investments, representing investments in approximately 450 properties.

Harris Williams & Co. (www.harriswilliams.com), a member of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE:PNC), is the premier middle market advisor with a two-decade legacy of sell side excellence serving clients worldwide. The firm is focused exclusively on the middle market, providing sell side and acquisition advisory, restructuring advisory, board advisory, private placements and capital markets advisory services.

Investment banking services are provided by Harris Williams LLC, a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC, and Harris Williams & Co. Ltd, an Appointed Representative of Sturgeon Ventures LLP, which is authorized and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Harris Williams & Co. is a trade name under which Harris Williams LLC and Harris Williams & Co. Ltd conduct business in the U.S. and Europe, respectively.