Regulation, Licensing, and Inspection of Miscellaneous Commercial Sectors (NAICS 926150)

A Histometrics industry primer for public- and private-market investors

1. Overview

NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code 926150 covers government agencies that license, regulate, and inspect businesses and workers across most of the commercial economy — the alcohol boards, professional-licensing boards, banking and insurance regulators, securities commissions, building and business-license inspectors, and labor-standards agencies that stand between a business and its legal right to operate.[1] It is a slice of the public-administration sector, not a private industry: every establishment counted here is a federal, state, or local government unit.[1]

Why would an investor care about a set of government offices? Three reasons. First, these agencies write the rules and hold the gate for whole categories of business — a cannabis dispensary, a sports-betting operator, a mortgage lender, a nail salon, or a nursing home cannot earn a dollar until the relevant board says yes. The pace and posture of these regulators is a direct input to the economics of the companies they oversee. Second, a large private vendor ecosystem sells into these agencies — licensing and permitting software, exam delivery, background checks, inspection services — and several of those vendors are publicly traded. Third, the private testing, inspection, and certification (TIC) industry mirrors the government inspection function and is one of the more durable "picks-and-shovels" compounding stories in global markets.

You cannot buy the industry itself — there is no security for a state licensing board. All exposure is indirect: through government-technology and services companies (e.g., Tyler Technologies, Maximus), credentialing/exam providers (Pearson VUE, Prometric), and the private TIC majors (SGS, Bureau Veritas, Intertek, UL Solutions). The investment thesis is structurally defensive demand paired with uneven supplier economics: regulation and public-safety needs persist across cycles, but individual vendor revenue can still ride construction, industrial capital spending, government budgets, staffing, and procurement cycles.

2. What it is and how it's structured

Scope. NAICS 926150 comprises "government establishments primarily engaged in the regulation, licensing, and inspection of commercial sectors, such as retail trade, professional occupations, manufacturing, mining, construction, and services."[1] It includes both rule enforcement and administrative functions such as issuing permits and licenses. Illustrative activities the Census Bureau lists under the code include:[1]

• Alcoholic beverage control (ABC) boards
• Professional- and occupational-licensing and permit issuance (contractors, cosmetologists, real-estate agents, nurses)
• Business-operation licensing and building inspection
• Banking regulatory agencies, insurance commissions, and securities-regulation commissions
• Labor-standards and labor-management-relations boards
• Agencies maintaining physical standards and regulating hazardous conditions not classified elsewhere

Ownership mix. This is a government-only industry, spread across all three levels of government. Federal agencies regulate national markets and financial sectors; state agencies run most professional licensing, insurance, securities, and alcohol rules; local governments handle much building inspection, permitting, zoning approvals, and business licensing. By 2024 employment the split was roughly state ~52%, federal ~33%, local ~14% (Section 3).[2] State government dominates because occupational and professional licensing — the largest single activity — is overwhelmingly a state function, run through hundreds of independent boards or consolidated departments of professional regulation.[6]

Private contractors that perform testing, engineering, software, or advisory work for these agencies are not in 926150 — they are classified by their own primary activity.[1]

What it excludes (adjacent NAICS codes). The code is a residual "everything-else" bucket within regulatory administration. General economic-program administration sits in 926110; regulation of transportation in 926120; regulation of utilities (electric, gas, water, communications) in 926130; agricultural marketing and commodity regulation in 926140.[1] Operating a government liquor store is 445320 (retail), and Federal Reserve banks are 521110.[1] Courts and administrative-law adjudication sit in the justice sector (NAICS 922). The private laboratories and firms that perform testing or engineering for a fee — as opposed to government inspectors — are classified in professional services (testing laboratories, NAICS 541380; engineering services, NAICS 541330), not here.[1]

3. How big it is

Our usual ground-truth business statistics do not measure this industry, and that absence is itself the headline. The Economic Census, County Business Patterns, and Statistics of U.S. Businesses exclude government-owned establishments by design, so those Census Bureau sources show essentially nothing for NAICS 926150 — which is exactly why Histometrics has no ingested Census/SBA (Small Business Administration) figures for this node.[3] We do not invent or infer a size figure; the numbers below come from the one federal source that does cover government payrolls.

That source is the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), which covers government workers through state unemployment-insurance systems and the federal-employee equivalent. QCEW covers more than 95% of U.S. jobs but excludes proprietors and the unincorporated self-employed, and suppresses cells where confidentiality requires it.[4]

BLS QCEW annual averages for 2024, NAICS 926150 (national), by level of government:[2]

A few notes on reading these numbers. "Establishments" here means government reporting units (agency offices and field units), not companies. Federal pay per worker is roughly double state and local pay, reflecting concentration in federal financial and safety regulators.[2] Employment grew modestly in 2024 — state headcount up about 3.7% — consistent with post-pandemic hiring and pay catch-up at licensing and enforcement agencies.[2]

The undercount caveat. Even QCEW's ~105,000 figure is best read as a floor for the true "regulation-of-commerce" workforce. A great deal of licensing, permitting, and inspection labor is embedded inside larger departments (a health department that also licenses clinics, a revenue department that also runs ABC, a city that folds building inspection into public works) and gets coded to other public-administration lines rather than to 926150. The population that feels this industry is far larger than the one counted in it: by BLS's Current Population Survey, roughly 1 in 5 employed Americans holds a government-issued occupational license, and by some estimates close to 30% work in jobs that legally require one — tens of millions of workers whose livelihoods pass through these agencies.[5] A government function is, in any case, better gauged by staffing, workload, appropriations, and fee collections than by commercial revenue — and government budgets, agency fees, and private-contractor revenue should never be added together as if they were one industry total.

4. The investable universe

There is no pure public play. NAICS 926150 is 100% government; no publicly traded company is this industry.[2] Public-market exposure is indirect, through three adjacent groups: the govtech / government-services vendors that build and run licensing, permitting, and inspection systems; the credentialing / exam providers; and the private TIC majors that perform inspection and certification for a fee. Revenue figures below are total-company figures (not U.S. revenue from this NAICS code), latest reported.

Public companies

(A note on relevance: the govtech and exam names sell directly into the agencies in 926150; the TIC names are the private analog of government inspection. Gaming-systems and other "regulated-operator" vendors exist but are better understood as gated businesses, not proxies for the regulator.)

Major private owners and vendors

Much of the global TIC industry is thus privately or foundation-owned, so the listed names capture only part of the sector. Finally, the regulated businesses themselves — cannabis operators, sportsbooks and online-gaming (iGaming) platforms, banks, insurers, staffing and healthcare providers — are the largest investable population whose economics turn on how these agencies act. They are consumers of the industry's output, not part of it.

5. How the money works

Because the "owners" here are governments and, ultimately, taxpayers — not shareholders — the government side looks nothing like a normal industry P&L. The metrics that matter are the budget-funding model, fee cost-recovery, fine and penalty revenue, and (in a few cases) direct commercial margins:

• Fee-funded / cost-recovery budgets. Most licensing and inspection agencies are designed to pay for themselves out of application, examination, and renewal fees charged to licensees. A board's health is measured by whether fee revenue covers operating cost; when a licensed population grows (more nurses, more contractors, more cannabis operators), fee revenue and headcount grow with it.[6]
• Fine and penalty revenue. Enforcement — disciplinary actions, civil penalties, settlements — is a second revenue stream, and in banking, insurance, securities, and environmental regulation a large one.
• Direct commercial margins (the outliers). In the ~17 alcohol "control" states, ABC agencies act as the wholesale — and sometimes retail — monopoly for distilled spirits and earn an actual markup; gaming and lottery regulators sit atop large tax-and-revenue flows. These agencies are net contributors to state general funds, not cost centers.

Useful government workload indicators for analysts: permit and license volume, inspection backlog and turnaround time, cost per transaction and fee recovery, enforcement caseload, and technology spending and contract-renewal rates.

For the investable vendors, the economics are ordinary and attractive. Govtech firms like Tyler earn recurring software revenue (annual recurring revenue and multi-year backlog) with high renewal rates and long (~10-year) state contracts;[8] exam providers earn per-candidate fees that scale with the number of people entering licensed occupations; TIC firms earn billable testing and inspection revenue at mid-to-high-teens/low-20s percent EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) margins, compounded by bolt-on acquisitions.[17] Regulation itself creates repeat demand — for example, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) requires third-party testing and certification for covered children's products, with ongoing obligations for continuing production.[19] The common thread: every vendor is levered to the volume of regulated activity — more licenses, more inspections, more compliance checkpoints. The most useful supplier metrics are billable/laboratory utilization, turnaround time, pricing, recurring-revenue mix, backlog, renewal rates, cash conversion, accreditation scope, customer concentration, and net leverage.

6. What drives demand

• The long expansion of licensing. The number of occupations licensed in at least one state has risen from roughly 800 in the early 1990s to over 1,100 today, and the share of the workforce that is licensed has climbed for decades.[6][5] Each newly licensed occupation creates a board, a fee stream, and an inspection mandate.
• New regulated sectors. Cannabis, sports betting and iGaming, cryptocurrency and money transmission, short-term rentals, and data-privacy/cybersecurity have each spawned fresh licensing regimes over the past decade — the single biggest source of new demand for licensing systems and enforcement capacity.
• More complex rules and standards. New technologies, global supply chains, shorter product cycles, and evolving safety requirements expand the need for independent testing and compliance support on the private TIC side.[14]
• Business formation and construction. Census Business Formation Statistics (new business applications) and the Building Permits Survey (new residential construction) are useful workload indicators for licensing and building-inspection agencies — not measures of industry revenue.[27]
• Aging infrastructure and public-safety pressure. Older industrial assets, pipelines, buildings, and public infrastructure require more inspection and engineering support; fires, accidents, contamination events, and financial blowups reliably trigger new inspection mandates and enforcement budgets. This demand is counter-cyclical to trust and pro-cyclical to crisis.[15]
• Digitization and license portability. Many boards still run on paper or 1990s-era mainframes; moving licensing, renewals, and inspections online is the core growth engine for govtech vendors. Interstate compacts that let a nurse, teacher, or counselor carry a license across state lines raise transaction volume and require shared data systems — expanding, not shrinking, the plumbing.[6]
• Countervailing force — deregulation. A bipartisan reform movement (backed by the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, and many governors) argues that occupational licensing is often an anticompetitive barrier; universal-recognition and "sunset" laws have trimmed some requirements.[5] This is a genuine headwind to the scope of licensing, though it rarely reduces agency headcount quickly. The vendor side is also cyclical: construction slowdowns, weak industrial capex, and delayed public budgets can cut vendor activity even when the regulatory mandate is intact.[15]

7. Regulation

This industry is the regulator, so the relevant "regulation" is the framework that governs the regulators themselves — and, separately, the rules that govern the private conformity-assessment firms that serve alongside them.

The government side.

• State Administrative Procedure Acts (APAs) set how boards make rules, hold hearings, and discipline licensees — the due-process spine of the whole system — alongside procurement rules and public-records law.
• Antitrust supervision of licensing boards. In North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. FTC (2015), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a licensing board controlled by active market participants (e.g., practicing dentists regulating dentistry) is not immune from federal antitrust law unless it is actively supervised by the state. The ruling forced many states to add supervision layers or restructure boards, and it remains the key legal check on self-interested licensing.[20]
• FTC and legislative scrutiny. FTC competition advocacy and state "sunrise/sunset" review laws periodically test whether a given license is justified, pushing some occupations toward lighter-touch certification or registration.[5]
• Federal overlays. Banking, securities, insurance (state-based but federally influenced), labor standards, and safety regulation each sit inside a federal statutory framework that constrains and sometimes preempts the state and local agencies counted here.

The private conformity-assessment side. Firms that test and certify for a fee face their own regulatory layer. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recognizes private-sector Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratories (NRTLs) to test and certify specified workplace equipment, requiring demonstrated competence, product follow-up, independence from manufacturers and users, and complaint/dispute procedures.[18] CPSC-accepted laboratories must meet accreditation requirements, while the manufacturer or importer remains responsible for certifying compliance.[19] A private certification mark is not automatically a government license; its legal effect depends on the relevant regulation, accreditation, or delegated authority. For investors in the TIC names, the things to track are accreditation renewals and scope, independence controls, data security, anti-bribery compliance, professional liability, and any regulatory investigations.[14]

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

Agencies do not compete — each holds a legal monopoly within its jurisdiction — so "competitive dynamics" plays out in two other places.

• Consolidation of government structure. The long-run administrative trend is to fold dozens of independent single-profession boards into unified departments of professional (or commercial) regulation, sharing back-office, IT, and enforcement. This concentrates purchasing power and favors platform vendors. Interstate licensing compacts add a soft standardizing force, nudging states toward common data formats and shared systems — again favoring multi-state platforms over bespoke local builds.[6]
• The govtech vendor market is consolidating fast: Tyler Technologies rolled up a string of public-sector software and payments assets, while challengers like Thentia, Accela, OpenGov, and CentralSquare race to convert paper-based boards to cloud platforms.[7][8] Scale helps: broader accreditation, geographic coverage, and the ability to meet enterprise procurement requirements.
• The TIC industry is a serial-acquisition game — SGS's 2025 purchase of Applied Technical Services added a large U.S. testing/inspection/calibration/forensics platform;[26] Temasek's ownership of Element and the Acuren–NV5 combination (now TIC Solutions) show institutional capital backing global platforms.[21][16] Yet the top players still hold only a low-double-digit share of a fragmented global TIC market, leaving a long consolidation runway. The trade-off: consolidation improves coverage and purchasing leverage but adds integration, debt, cultural, and independence risk — and local relationships and narrow technical expertise stay valuable where permits and inspections are jurisdiction-specific.[14][15]

9. Risks

• Political and budget risk. Agency scope, staffing, and modernization budgets ride the appropriations cycle; a deregulatory administration can freeze hiring, cut boards, cap fees, or slow procurement.
• Deregulation of licensing. The reform push to shrink occupational licensing is a structural headwind to the number of licensees — and therefore to fee volume and to vendors paid per license or per exam.[5]
• Cyclicality. For the TIC and engineering vendors, construction, industrial, energy, and infrastructure projects can be postponed even when the regulatory mandate stands.[15]
• Procurement is long and lumpy. State and local contracts take years to award, can be lost at renewal, and a troubled statewide rollout can move the needle for a vendor concentrated on a few big contracts.
• Labor and accreditation risk. Skilled inspectors, engineers, and licensing staff are hard to replace and wage inflation compresses margins; a failed inspection, inaccurate test, fraud allegation, or lost authorization can damage a provider's brand.
• Independence risk. Conflicts between consulting, testing, certification, and commercial incentives can undermine the trust the whole model rests on.
• Legal and constitutional challenges. Antitrust exposure post-NC Dental, plus First Amendment and economic-liberty challenges to specific licenses, create ongoing litigation risk that can reshape or eliminate a board's mandate.[20]
• Governance risk (specific). UL Solutions is a "controlled company": its 2025 filing reports that UL Standards & Engagement held roughly 94.1% of voting power after a late-2025 secondary offering, which reduces certain governance protections for public shareholders.[14]
• Federalism fragmentation and measurement risk. Fifty-plus different systems mean no national scale for the government function, high complexity for multi-state businesses, and integration risk for vendors selling one platform everywhere. And because standard business statistics ignore this sector,[3] anyone relying on Census-style data will misjudge its size — QCEW and agency budget documents are the honest sources.[2]

10. How to invest and the outlook

The bottom line on access: there is no direct public or private security that is NAICS 926150 — it is government. Investors express a view only through the companies that serve it or are gated by it.

Public-market routes.

• Govtech and government services: Tyler Technologies (NYSE: TYL) is the clearest listed proxy for the digitization of state and local licensing and inspection; Maximus (NYSE: MMS) runs eligibility, licensing, and program operations under contract.[8][9]
• Credentialing and exams: Pearson plc (LSE: PSON), through Pearson VUE, is levered to the volume of people entering licensed professions.[10]
• Testing, inspection & certification: the private analog of government inspection — SGS (SIX: SGSN), Bureau Veritas (Euronext: BVI), Intertek (LSE: ITRK), Eurofins (Euronext: ERF), UL Solutions (NYSE: ULS), and U.S.-listed MISTRAS Group (NYSE: MG) and TIC Solutions (NYSE: TIC) — offers a diversified, cash-generative way to own the "conformity-assessment" theme worldwide.[11][12][13][14][15][16]
• Regulated-sector operators: owning the gated businesses (cannabis, sportsbooks/iGaming, banks, insurers, healthcare) is an indirect bet on how favorably these agencies behave — high beta to regulatory outcomes.

For public names, the things to compare are organic vs. acquisition-driven growth, recurring (certification, monitoring, SaaS) revenue mix, billable/laboratory utilization, price realization vs. wage inflation, backlog and renewal rates, customer concentration, free-cash-flow conversion and net debt, and acquisition returns — before the market metrics (share price, dividend yield, EV/EBITDA, free-cash-flow yield).

Private-market routes. The most targeted exposure is in the venture- and PE-backed licensing/permitting software names — Thentia, Accela, OpenGov, CentralSquare — riding the wave of boards replacing paper with cloud platforms; plus privately held exam providers (Prometric) and the large private or foundation-owned TIC operators (Element, DEKRA, TÜV, DNV, Lloyd's Register, Applus+).[7][21][22] Underwriting here turns on accreditation durability, customer retention, recurring-service mix, utilization, safety record, backlog, labor availability, acquisition pipeline, leverage, and exit optionality; in government software, implementation quality, subscription retention, and switching costs matter more than headline customer counts. Private investors entering a newly regulated sector (a cannabis or betting license) are effectively underwriting the behavior and processing speed of these agencies as a core deal variable.

Near-term drivers to watch. The growth case rests on continued legacy-system modernization, the build-out of licensing regimes for new sectors (cannabis, sports betting/iGaming, crypto and money transmission, AI and data-privacy oversight), the spread of interstate licensing compacts, and early adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in licensing and inspection workflows (application triage, fraud detection, remote/automated inspection). The principal offsetting risks are the deregulation / universal-recognition movement and the possibility that AI and customer-owned compliance systems reduce labor-intensive testing. Net: the government function is a slow, non-cyclical, budget-bound institution — the investable exposure to it (govtech, exams, TIC) is a steadier, compounding, contract-driven business than the underlying agencies would suggest. The best analysis keeps government workload and private-provider revenue in separate columns and treats every public company as an indirect proxy, not a NAICS 926150 constituent.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 NAICS Manual, and NAICS Association, "NAICS Code 926150 — Regulation, Licensing, and Inspection of Miscellaneous Commercial Sectors" (definition, illustrative activities, and cross-references incl. 926110/926120/926130/926140, 445320, 521110, 541380, 541330). https://www.census.gov/naics/reference_files_tools/2022_NAICS_Manual.pdf; https://www.naics.com/naics-code-description/?code=926150
2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), 2024 annual averages, NAICS 926150, national by ownership (federal/state/local). https://data.bls.gov/cew/data/api/2024/a/industry/926150.csv (program: https://www.bls.gov/cew/)
3. U.S. Census Bureau, "Economic Census: Understanding NAICS / scope" (the economic census excludes government-owned establishments and government-dominated industries), 2022. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census/year/2022/guidance/understanding-naics.html
4. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages — Overview" (coverage >95% of U.S. jobs; exclusions and confidentiality suppression). https://www.bls.gov/cew/overview.htm
5. Brookings Institution, "Nearly 30 percent of workers in the U.S. need a license to perform their job," and U.S. BLS Current Population Survey, "Certification and licensing status of the employed," 2024. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/nearly-30-percent-of-workers-in-the-u-s-need-a-license-to-perform-their-job-it-is-time-to-examine-occupational-licensing-practices/; https://www.bls.gov/cps/certifications-and-licenses.htm
6. National Conference of State Legislatures, "The State of Occupational Licensing" / National Occupational Licensing Database (1,100+ occupations licensed in at least one state), and Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, "Who has an occupational license in the United States," 2023. https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/the-national-occupational-licensing-database; https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2023/who-has-an-occupational-license-in-the-united-states
7. The Council of State Governments, "Professional Licensing Boards Partner with Software Companies to Manage Online Licensing Services," 2022, and Government Technology, "Licensing Tech Firm Thentia Has Big Plans for U.S. Expansion," 2022. https://www.csg.org/2022/08/30/professional-licensing-boards-partner-with-software-companies-to-manage-online-licensing-services/; https://www.govtech.com/biz/licensing-tech-firm-thentia-has-big-plans-for-u-s-expansion
8. Tyler Technologies, Inc., full-year 2024 results (revenue ~$2.14 billion; FY2025 guidance ~$2.335–2.360 billion), SEC Form 8-K. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/860731/000086073125000024/a991earningsrelease-3312025.htm; https://investors.tylertech.com/financials/quarterly-results/default.aspx
9. Maximus, Inc., "Fourth Quarter and Full Year Results for Fiscal Year 2024" (revenue ~$5.31 billion), 2024. https://investor.maximus.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/553/maximus-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-results-for
10. Pearson plc, "2024 Full Year Results" (group sales ~£3.5 billion; owner of Pearson VUE). https://plc.pearson.com/en-GB/investors/financial-results
11. SGS SA, "2025 Full Year Results" (sales ~CHF 6.945 billion), 2026. https://www.sgs.com/en-de/news/2026/02/2025-full-year-results
12. Bureau Veritas, "Key Figures" (2025 revenue ~€6.47 billion). https://group.bureauveritas.com/investors/our-profile/key-figures
13. Intertek Group plc, "2025: Year in Review" (revenue ~£3.43 billion). https://www.intertek.com/investors/2025-year-in-review/
14. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "UL Solutions Inc. Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025" (revenue ~$3.053 billion; controlled company — UL Standards & Engagement ~94.1% voting power after late-2025 secondary). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1901440/000190144026000005/uls-20251231.htm
15. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "MISTRAS Group, Inc. Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025" (revenue ~$724.0 million). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1436126/000162828026016765/mg-20251231.htm
16. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "TIC Solutions, Inc. (formerly Acuren Corporation) Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025," and Acuren–NV5 Global merger completion (August 2025; rebrand October 2025; ~$2.1 billion pro forma revenue). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2032966/000162828026017015/tic-20251231.htm; https://ir.ticsolutions.com/news/news-details/2025/Acuren-Corporation-Completes-Merger-with-NV5-Global-Inc--to-Create-a-Market-Leading-North-American-Provider-of-TICC-Services/default.aspx
17. Aventis Advisors, "Top 10 largest Testing, Inspection and Certification companies globally," and Grand View Research, "Testing, Inspection & Certification (TIC) Market Size" (global TIC market ~$260+ billion; Eurofins ~€7 billion; sector margins/fragmentation), 2025. https://aventis-advisors.com/top-10-largest-testing-inspection-and-certification-companies-globally/; https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/testing-inspection-certification-market
18. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), "Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL) Program — Frequently Asked Questions." https://www.osha.gov/nationally-recognized-testing-laboratory-program/frequently-asked-questions
19. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), "Children's Product Certificate" (third-party testing and certification for covered children's products). https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Testing-Certification/Childrens-Product-Certificate
20. Supreme Court of the United States, North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission, 574 U.S. 494 (2015). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-534_19m2.pdf
21. Element Materials Technology, "Element Announces Completion of Its Acquisition by Temasek," 2022. https://www.element.com/about-element/news/2022/07/05/element-announces-completion-of-its-acquisition-by-temasek
22. Foundation- and association-owned TIC groups: DEKRA e.V. (https://www.dekra.com/en/about-dekra/); TÜV Rheinland and TÜV SÜD (association/foundation ownership; https://www.tuv.com/, https://www.tuvsud.com/); DNV, wholly owned via DNV Holding by the Det Norske Veritas Foundation (https://www.dnv.com/about/in-brief/corporate-governance/); Lloyd's Register, owned by the Lloyd's Register Foundation charity (https://www.lr.org/en/about-us/who-we-are/our-history/).
23. Cox Enterprises, "Cox Enterprises Acquires Majority Ownership of OpenGov," 2024. https://www.coxenterprises.com/press-releases/cox-enterprises-acquires-majority-ownership-of-opengov
24. Accela, "Berkshire Partners Acquires Accela," 2017, and "Accela Advances Momentum with New Strategic Investment from Francisco Partners," 2023. https://www.accela.com/press-releases/berkshire-partners-acquires-accela/; https://www.accela.com/press-releases/accela-advances-momentum-with-new-strategic-investment-from-francisco-partners/
25. CentralSquare Technologies, "Board of Directors" (Bain Capital; Vista Equity Partners). https://www.centralsquare.com/why-centralsquare/board
26. SGS, "SGS Has Signed an Agreement to Acquire Applied Technical Services," 2025. https://www.sgs.com/en/news/2025/07/sgs-has-signed-an-agreement-to-acquire-applied-technical-services
27. U.S. Census Bureau, "Business Formation Statistics" and "Building Permits Survey" (workload indicators, not industry-revenue measures). https://www.census.gov/econ/bfs/index.html; https://www.census.gov/construction/bps/index.html