Mister Car Wash, Inc. (MCW)

Mister Car Wash was founded in 1969 in Tucson, Arizona, where it remained headquartered. The company built a chain of conveyorized express exterior car washes, in which customers stay in the vehicle while it moves through a tunnel, and added interior cleaning services at many locations. It operated for decades as a regional business before expanding aggressively across the Sun Belt and other parts of the United States through new site construction and acquisitions of smaller operators.

The company was previously known as Hotshine Holdings, Inc. and adopted the Mister Car Wash name for the parent company in March 2021. A central part of its model was the Unlimited Wash Club, a monthly subscription program that gave members unlimited washes and produced recurring revenue. The company also sold individual washes and ancillary services, and it invested in technology for customer recognition, mobile payments and operations at its tunnels.

Mister Car Wash went public in June 2021 in an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MCW. At the time of the offering it operated more than 300 locations across more than a dozen states and was among the largest car wash operators in the country. It used proceeds and cash flow to expand its footprint, build new locations and reduce debt, growing to several hundred sites in over twenty states.

In the years following the IPO the company faced a more competitive environment for express car washes, as private-equity-backed operators and other public chains expanded in many of the same markets. Growth in same-store sales slowed from the pandemic-era peak, and investors scrutinized subscriber growth, pricing, and the cost of building new sites in a higher-interest-rate environment. The company's share price declined well below its initial public offering level.

In 2026, Mister Car Wash agreed to be acquired by funds affiliated with Leonard Green & Partners, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, in an all-cash transaction. Stockholders were to receive $7.00 per share, and the deal implied a total enterprise value of approximately $3.1 billion including debt. Members of management agreed to roll over part of their ownership into the privately held company, and the transaction covered all shares of common stock not already owned by affiliates of the buyers.

Mister Car Wash announced completion of the take-private on May 19, 2026. At that point its common stock stopped trading on the New York Stock Exchange, and a Form 25 was filed with the SEC to remove the shares from listing and registration. The company now operates as a privately held business under Leonard Green's ownership, continuing to run its car wash network from Tucson.