Four Wheel Drive Hardware Sold

Columbiana, OH-based Four Wheel Drive Hardware, an aftermarket auto parts supplier with $75 million in sales last year, was sold to Transamerican Auto Parts Co., a portfolio company of Bear Stearns Merchant Banking. Four Wheel Drive had been owned by private equity firms Pfingsten Partners and Svoboda, Collins.

Founded in 1977, Four Wheel Drive is a print/Web cataloger of parts and accessories for Jeeps, Porsches, Mercedes, and Toyota trucks. Transamerican, which mails the 166-page 4 Wheel Parts catalog, sells aftermarket parts and accessories for light trucks, Jeeps, sport utility vehicles, and other four wheel drive vehicles. It also sells via 45 stores and to 4,000 wholesale customers.

Cleveland-based investment bank Brown Gibbons Lang & Co. represented the sellers.