Scotts Miracle-Gro Company sold a 30% stake in TruGreen to Clayton Dubiler & Rice for $234m.

Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, an American multinational corporation headquartered in Marysville, sold a 30% stake in TruGreen, a provider of lawn care services, to private equity firm Clayton Dubiler & Rice for $234m. “Shareholder value was clearly maximized by the creation of this JV and now our divestiture of this investment,” said Randy Coleman, chief financial officer. “Using these proceeds to reduce our debt should allow us to lower our debt-to-EBITDA ratio below 4.0 by the end of fiscal 2019 and to 3.5 times debt-to-EBITDA by the end of 2020. At that level, management would once again begin to explore options to proactively return more cash to shareholders.”