Industrial

The Industrial sector offers institutional investors, financial advisors, and wealth managers a compelling source of returns, cash flow generation, and exposure to long-term secular trends. Our Global Private Equity Industrial team seeks to partner with market-leading businesses across critical sub-sectors: Industrial Products, Process Industries, Services, and Distribution.

We are committed to delivering differentiated value by leveraging our extensive global network, deep industrial sector expertise, and a hands-on approach to operational improvement. Our strategy is built on acquiring leading businesses and executing clear, achievable value-creation plans tailored to generate sustainable growth.

Strategy and approach

By focusing on targeted investment themes, our team sources proprietary transactions and zeroes in on compelling opportunities to connect businesses with clear plans for value creation.

We are highly selective, yet flexible on investment size (from $50 million to more than $1 billion), form (minority or majority), and growth stage of our partnerships. This gives us the opportunity to work with great companies regardless of their size or current capital needs. Our team is a world leader in executing large corporate carve-out transactions – acquiring orphaned segments that are deemed non-core by large corporate parents and transforming them into world-class independent businesses. Corporate carve-outs are responsible for nearly two-thirds of equity invested by the global Industrial team.

Value creation

Working with our portfolio companies’ executive teams, we drive performance through multiple levers of value creation including operational improvement, re-investment to fund commercial growth, international expansion, new product development, and mergers & acquisitions. We ground our industrial investment strategy in several key themes:

• Migration of powertrain technologies to electric vehicles.
• Increased construction demand driven by growth in artificial intelligence and greater domestic production.
• Acceleration of automation, electrification, and digitalization trends in production.
• Cyclical rebound of end markets driven by product innovation and shifts toward more sustainable and e-commerce driven solutions.
• Growth in global trade and increased focus on fuel-efficient technologies in all parts of the supply chain.

Working closely with executive teams, we implement a proven value creation model to enhance asset value and drive real investment outcomes through:

• Operational excellence. Implementing best-in-class processes and digital tools to increase margins and efficiency.
• Global scaling. Utilizing our international network to accelerate market penetration and growth.
• Strategic M&A. Executing targeted, accretive acquisitions to consolidate market share and achieve scale.

Investment themes

Our investment strategy is informed by secular trends that offer significant long-term growth potential:

Focused ownership

• Carve-outs. Conglomerates are divesting non-core assets that offer meaningful operational and commercial improvement opportunities under new focused ownership.
• Take-privates. Public ownership constrains strategic flexibility for undervalued industrial companies.

Revitalization of Western industrial base

• Nearshoring and reshoring. Operational disruptions and geopolitical risks are forcing companies to localize supply chains and manufacturing, prioritizing reliability and speed over cost.
• Aging infrastructure. A significant portion of US infrastructure is operating beyond its originally designed useful life, increasing replacement and modernization requirements.

Fourth industrial revolution

• Artificial intelligence. Digital systems, sensors, and connected equipment are generating vast amounts of historically underutilized data that AI can harness to drive value.
• Automation. Structural labor shortages and sustained wage inflation are accelerating automation and robotics across core industrial workflows.
• Electrification. Growing electricity demand from electrification, data centers, AI, and electric vehicles is putting pressure on power grids, requiring upgrades and alternative sources of energy.