The GracoRoberts management team retains a significant stake and continues to lead the business, ending an 11-year ownership by CM Equity Partners
GracoRoberts supplies the adhesives, sealants, coatings, composites, and other specialty chemicals that aircraft and defense manufacturers use to build and maintain their products.
July 28, 2026|John McNulty
Tinicum has acquired GracoRoberts, a distributor of specialty chemicals and composites used in the aerospace and defense industry, from CM Equity Partners.
GracoRoberts supplies the adhesives, sealants, coatings, composites, and other specialty chemicals that aircraft and defense manufacturers use to build and maintain their products. The company sells through an omnichannel model, combining an eCommerce operation with a technical sales team that helps customers select and apply the right materials.
GracoRoberts is certified to the aerospace industry’s AS and ISO quality standards and to the Department of Defense’s CMMC Level II cybersecurity standard, and it is authorized to distribute more than 50 specialty chemical brands, including 3M, AkzoNobel, Eastman, ExxonMobil, Henkel, Hexcel, Huntsman, Momentive, and Resin Formulators.
Beyond distribution, GracoRoberts runs a defense logistics and compliance program that manages the supply chain for military operations end to end, and it offers services such as custom kitting, labeling, repackaging, cold storage, and vendor-managed inventory.
The business is made up of parent GracoRoberts together with Silmid, SkyGeek, Pacific Coast Composites, and Sky Mart, and it operates an on-site, staffed chemical laboratory and testing facility. Arlington, Texas-headquartered GracoRoberts is led by chief executive officer Jason Caldwell.CM Equity acquired Graco Supply in September 2015 and has spent the past 11 years growing the business through a series of acquisitions that added California-based E.V. Roberts (May 2019) — the merger that produced the GracoRoberts name — UK-based Silmid (March 2021); New York-based SkyGeek (July 2022); Washington-based Pacific Coast Composites (May 2023); and Florida-based Sky Mart (January 2026).
Jason Caldwell
“Tinicum shares our commitment to our people, our partners, and the long-term success of this business,” said Mr. Caldwell. “This partnership provides additional resources to invest in our team, strengthen our capabilities, and continue delivering exceptional value to the customer and supplier partners we serve. We are incredibly proud of what our employees have built over the past decade alongside financial partner CM Equity, and we are excited to build on that foundation in this next chapter of growth.”
“It has been a privilege to partner with the GracoRoberts management team over the past 11 years,” said Jeffrey Mark, a managing partner at CM Equity. “Working together, we executed a value creation strategy centered on strategic acquisitions, operational excellence, and sustained organic growth, transforming GracoRoberts into the market-leading company it is today. We are proud of what the team has accomplished and believe the company is exceptionally well positioned for continued success with Tinicum.”
Erik Blumenkranz
“We greatly admire the business that the GracoRoberts team has built. It is distinguished by the team’s technical depth, unwavering commitment to customer service, and longstanding partnerships with the world’s leading material manufacturers,” said Erik Blumenkranz, a partner at Tinicum. “We intend to invest behind that foundation with a long-term mindset — in the people, the capabilities, and the platform,” added Roddy Cruz, a partner at Tinicum. “It is exactly the kind of durable, market-leading business we seek to partner with.”
The buy of GracoRoberts lands in a corner of the aerospace supply chain buoyed by rising defense budgets and a busy aftermarket. The US aerospace adhesives and sealants market was worth roughly $360 million in 2025 and is expected to grow at about 5.7% a year through 2035, according to Precedence Research, while global estimates for 2026 range between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion across research firms. North America accounts for more than 40% of volume, a lead that traces to sustained US military spending and the contractors and distributors that supply it. Demand is driven by the move to lightweight composite airframes, which rely on bonded rather than fastened joints, and by a maintenance, repair, and overhaul cycle that keeps specialty chemicals moving long after an aircraft is delivered. Distributors that pair technical support with compliance and logistics, as GracoRoberts does, sit at the center of that flow.For Tinicum, the appeal is a distributor with defensible characteristics: certifications and compliance standards that are difficult for new entrants to clear, deep technical relationships with both suppliers and aerospace customers, and a recurring aftermarket revenue base. The firm has signaled a long-hold approach rather than a quick flip, planning to invest behind the platform’s people and capabilities and to keep the management team in place with a meaningful equity stake. That continuity, paired with additional capital for acquisitions and internal investment, positions GracoRoberts to extend the buy-and-build strategy CM Equity began — consolidating a fragmented supply chain for specialty aerospace chemicals while deepening its position with blue-chip material manufacturers.
Tinicum invests from $50 million to $500 million of equity per transaction in companies that are active in the manufacturing, distribution, industrial technology and specialty infrastructure sectors. The firm invests in both private control transactions and minority positions in private and public companies.
Tinicum was founded in 1974 to manage the holdings of the Ruttenberg family and began managing outside capital in a traditional private equity fund structure in 1998. In 2012, the firm established Tinicum LP – a long-term investment vehicle with an indefinite life and multiple, successive commitment periods – and today manages more than $2.4 billion of committed capital from families and individuals. Tinicum is led by its managing partner Eric Ruttenberg and has offices in New York City, San Francisco, Houston and Frankfurt.
New York-headquartered CM Equity Partners (CMEP) makes either majority or minority investments in companies active in the federal services and aerospace and defense sectors. CMEP, founded in 1992 by Joel Jacks and Peter Schulte, is affiliated with Carl Marks & Co., a private family investment office with merchant banking activities dating to 1925.
Harris Williams was the financial advisor to GracoRoberts and CM Equity Partners.
CM Equity acquired Graco Supply in September 2015 and has spent the past 11 years growing the business through a series of acquisitions that added California-based E.V. Roberts (May 2019) — the merger that produced the GracoRoberts name — UK-based Silmid (March 2021); New York-based SkyGeek (July 2022); Washington-based Pacific Coast Composites (May 2023); and Florida-based Sky Mart (January 2026).
For Tinicum, the appeal is a distributor with defensible characteristics: certifications and compliance standards that are difficult for new entrants to clear, deep technical relationships with both suppliers and aerospace customers, and a recurring aftermarket revenue base. The firm has signaled a long-hold approach rather than a quick flip, planning to invest behind the platform’s people and capabilities and to keep the management team in place with a meaningful equity stake. That continuity, paired with additional capital for acquisitions and internal investment, positions GracoRoberts to extend the buy-and-build strategy CM Equity began — consolidating a fragmented supply chain for specialty aerospace chemicals while deepening its position with blue-chip material manufacturers.
New York-headquartered 
