Blackford Capital has acquired E.G. Middleton Inc., a Norfolk, Virginia, electrical contractor whose client list includes the U.S. Navy, Dominion Energy and Newport News Shipbuilding. The Grand Rapids, Michigan, private equity firm is folding the 106-year-old company into Habco Partnership, its mechanical, electrical and plumbing platform, which gives that group its first foothold in Virginia.
Blackford announced the deal Oct. 14. It didn’t disclose a price or E.G. Middleton’s revenue. E.G. “Rudy” Middleton III, the third-generation president and CEO, stays on with his management team.
What E.G. Middleton brings to Habco
The company was founded in 1920 and has about 120 employees, more than 100 of them electricians. It designs, installs and maintains high-voltage distribution, substations, building wiring, site lighting and specialty controls on large infrastructure and institutional jobs. The specialty that stands out is waterfront work: shipyards, piers and dry docks.
That’s a narrow trade. Pier and dry dock electrical packages come with Navy specifications and base access requirements, and the electricians who know them tend to cluster in a handful of port regions. Hampton Roads is the biggest of them.
Private equity’s MEP platform math
Habco anchors a platform Blackford assembled from two acquisitions that closed in December 2025. Habco is a St. Louis design-build electrical contractor founded in 1973. Moro Corp., based in Natick, Massachusetts, owns HVAC, electrical, structural steel and sheet metal shops across the Northeast. Blackford announced the combination in March and calls it HVAC, Electrical and Diversified Services. Habco CEO Andrew Habel runs the group.
Blackford says it targets lower-middle-market industrial companies with $20 million to $200 million in revenue. Its stated rationale here is the standard one for roll-ups: bigger projects, more capacity and cross-selling. The release doesn’t explain how a St. Louis electrical shop and a Norfolk marine electrician would share customers. The more likely near-term payoff is the backlog itself, tied to federal shipbuilding and utility work that private buyers have been chasing.
Why shipyard electrical contractors are in demand
Naval and commercial yard spending is running hot. Anduril and the Navy plan a $6.6 billion shipyard in Maryland, Construction Dive reported Oct. 8, and a JE Dunn-Alberici joint venture has broken ground on a $3.2 billion shipyard in Texas. In the Pacific Northwest, NAVFAC Northwest split a $9 billion construction contract among 15 firms on the last day of the fiscal year. Private yards are growing too, including Saronic’s shipyard expansion in Franklin, Louisiana.
All of that needs electrical subs who can work on active waterfronts. For a family firm in its third generation, a sale to private equity is one way to fund the bonding, equipment and hiring that larger packages demand. For primes bidding Hampton Roads work, a familiar sub now answers to a Michigan investor with a multistate platform and its own return targets.
Watch two things. Whether Habco starts sending E.G. Middleton crews to jobs outside Virginia, and whether Moro’s steel and HVAC shops start showing up on Navy bids. Either would show what this platform is really for.