United Rentals co-founder raises $21M for buyout fund

Two years removed from United Rentals Inc., the company he co-founded, John Milne reportedly has raised $21 million from investors for a buyout fund.

With several United Rentals colleagues, Milne now runs Unified Growth Partners L.P. in Greenwich, whose new funding was reported this month by LBO Wire.

Whereas Milne directed acquisitions in targeted industries at United Rentals, and before that at United Waste Systems Inc., Unified Growth Partners appears to be doing deals wherever it finds opportunity.

The fund”™s initial investment in 2005 was in Baran Institute of Technology, an East Windsor company whose affiliates include the Connecticut Culinary Institute in Hartford and the International College of Hospitality Management in Suffield. Some 1,300 students attended the schools in 2007, with attendance up 30 percent from 2006.

More recently, Unified Growth Partners backed the creation of BrightHeart Veterinary Centers, a Greenwich company hoping to capitalize on recent consolidation in the vet-clinic industry.

Unified Growth Partners is in the process of acquiring Pittsburgh Brewing Co., a beer company under bankruptcy reorganization that plans to rename itself Iron City Brewing after capping the deal.

Milne was fired two years ago as president and chief financial officer of United Rentals after the company indicated he refused to answer questions related to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into United Rentals”™ accounting practices.

Milne has maintained that the questions involved complicated transactions that occurred during the time he was not CFO, and that the board fired him instead of giving him more time to respond.