Arlington Capital Partners has acquired the Zemax division, a provider of optical and illumination design software, from Radiant Zemax.
The Zemax division (Zemax) is a provider of optical and illumination design software used by design engineers in the aerospace, defense, medical & life sciences, instrumentation, optics, lighting, and government R&D sectors. Zemax’s OpticStudio software platform allows users to quickly design, tolerance and simulate sophisticated optical or illumination systems. The company’s installed base spans 80 different countries and includes over 7,500 different companies. Zemax is based in Redmond, WA (www.zemax.com).
“Zemax’s technically superior software algorithms have long represented the best value proposition in the rapidly growing optical and illumination design software market, and the company is ideally positioned to benefit from the strong macro growth trends in its underlying market sectors,” said Michael Lustbader, a Partner at Arlington Capital. “In addition, we believe the company has significant potential to expand its traditional user base beyond expert users, and we are excited to partner with the Zemax team to execute an aggressive growth plan as a standalone company.”
Arlington Capital Partners has $1.5 billion of committed capital and focuses on buyouts and recapitalizations of companies valued from $50 million to $500 million. Sectors of interest include aerospace and defense, government services and software, healthcare services, business services, and education and training. Zemax becomes the sixth company with licensable software in Arlington Capital’s current portfolio, joining Advanced Health, Compusearch, Iron Data, Novetta, and Quantum Spatial. The firm is based in Washington, DC (www.arlingtoncap.com).
“The Zemax acquisition creates a software platform with global sales capabilities that is well positioned for substantial growth. We have consistently been impressed with the company’s execution capabilities and look forward to building the Zemax platform through the execution of both organic initiatives and highly targeted acquisitions,” said Jesse Liu, a Principal at Arlington Capital.
The senior debt financing for the acquisition was provided by Ares Capital and the subordinated debt financing was provided by Stellus Capital Management and Metropolitan Life.
2014 PEPD • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 10-26-14
