Packaged Gas Firm Takes Local Bet

Encore Gas & Supply, a distributor of gas and welding supplies based in Long Beach, has been acquired by packaged gas distribution company Falcon Gases. 

The deal gives Falcon an initial platform in Southern California, taking over Encore’s Signal Hill specialty and industrial gas facility and its three showrooms in Long Beach, Ontario and Valencia. Encore’s president, Ben Anderson, said folding into Falcon will usher in the “next phase of growth” for the company he co-founded in 2014. 

“We are excited to partner with Pete and the Falcon team to build a leading packaged gas and welding platform,” Anderson said in a news release. “We will continue with the core belief that has made us successful to date: invest in customers, people and assets, and the rest will take care of itself.”

Planned growth

The acquisition marks the beginning of a planned organic and inorganic growth spree for New York City-based Falcon, which launched in late 2025 and just received a majority investment from private equity firm Odyssey Investment Partners. Falcon’s nascent effort will center partnerships with owners and managers, Chief Executive Pete Jeffe said, who’ll “work cohesively” with platform leaders. 

“Encore and Ben stand out as the perfect foundational partnership, and we are very excited to build with them,” Jeffe said in the news release. “Encore has a track record of growth, exceptional customer service and a deep belief that people and relationships are what drive success.”

Falcon and Encore wouldn’t be shaking hands now if it weren’t for a change the latter made nearly a decade ago. The Long Beach-based firm, founded as Encore Welding Supply, leaned into its burgeoning gas distribution business after opening a Signal Hill gas facility in 2018. Two years later, it reflected that growing investment with a rebrand and jumped into “microbulk” services, which involve the installation of large gas tanks for customers on-site.

“When we started this business in 2014, we catered almost exclusively to welding and construction, particularly to those companies serving infrastructure and energy,” Anderson said in 2020, when the company adopted its current name. “Since then, while our commitment to and market share in those core areas have continued to grow, we have also experienced tremendous diversification in the number and type of industries we serve on a day-to-day basis.”