Rentokil acquires Tampa-based Environmental Pest Service and its five brands

Pest control is the most consolidated of Tampa Bay’s home-service trades, and the single largest local transfer happened in the first week of 2021.

On January 8, 2021, Rentokil North America announced it had acquired Environmental Pest Service, LLC, a Tampa-headquartered platform running about 30 branches with roughly 640 employees across Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. Trade coverage put EPS at $82 million in revenue, ranked No. 15 on the PCT Top 100 (Source: Rentokil North America, 2021; Pest Control Technology, 2021).

EPS operated five brands: Arrow Environmental Services, Bug Out Service, Skyline Pest Solutions, State Pest Control and Smith Exterminating.

Rentokil North America CEO John Myers said the acquisition expanded the company’s ability to serve residential and commercial customers across the Southeast. EPS CEO Shawn Lucht cited cultures that mirrored one another. LR Tullius advised EPS on the sale.

A sponsor exit, not a founder exit

The seller was Concentric Equity Partners, which had been an investor in EPS since 2010 (Source: Private Equity Wire). This was a private equity firm realizing an eleven-year hold by selling a platform of local brands to a publicly traded multinational.

That is the full arc in one transaction: independents are bought by a regional platform, the platform is grown to institutional scale, and the platform is sold to a strategic buyer. Concentric later backed Leap Partners, which entered Tampa Bay in 2025 and 2026 with HVAC acquisitions.

EPS had itself been an acquirer locally, including New Port Richey’s Unique Pest Control.

Where the local pest trade stands now

Rentokil’s parent, Rentokil Initial plc, later combined with Terminix, making it the largest pest control company in the United States. Arrow Environmental Services now identifies itself as part of the Rentokil Terminix family (Source: Arrow Environmental Services).

The rest of the Tampa Bay pest map has moved the same direction. Rollins, Orkin’s parent, bought eight Hulett branches including Tampa Bay and Sarasota in 2012. Arrow Exterminators has acquired at least five local companies since 2017. Turner Pest Control, owned by Anticimex and ultimately by EQT, has bought five Sarasota-area firms since 2019.

What it means for homeowners

Pest control is a subscription business. The recurring quarterly or bi-monthly contract is what a buyer is paying for, and that shapes the model more than any single service visit.

• Recurring revenue is the asset. Valuations in this trade are driven by the size and retention of the recurring customer base. That creates pressure to add plans, expand coverage tiers and reduce cancelations.
• The brand is the customer-facing layer. All five EPS brands kept their names through the sale. A homeowner whose Arrow or Bug Out plan renewed in 2021 became a customer of a London-listed multinational without receiving a notice.
• Auto-renewal terms are where the model lives. Read the cancelation and renewal language on any pest agreement, and know whether you are prepaid, in a term, or month-to-month.

Look up ownership for any Tampa Bay pest company in the company database, or browse the full pest trade record.