Strategy

Venture Aircraft, a supplier to the aerospace industry and a portfolio company of Graycliff Partners, has acquired certain assets of Swift-Cor Aerospace. The combined entity will operate under the new name of Impresa Aerospace. “We are pleased to announce the creation of Impresa Aerospace. The combination of Venture and Swift-Cor’s assets and services, coupled with the experience and expertise of our new management team, uniquely positions the company for a new and exciting phase of growth,” said Duke Punhong, Principal, Graycliff Partners. “In addition, the acquisition of Swift-Cor gives the Impresa team additional assets and capabilities to better service customers experiencing increases in aircraft build rates.”

Impresa provides engineering, manufacturing, and assembly services to Tier 1 and Tier 2 companies in the aerospace industry. The company has contracts with Boeing, Spirit Aerosystems, Sikorsky, Lockheed Martin and Gulfstream. Notable commercial programs include the Boeing 787, 777, 747, 737; Airbus A330 and A340; and Gulfstream G650. Impresa supports various defense-related programs, including Boeing’s Apache Helicopter, C-17 and F-18; Sikorky’s Black Hawk helicopter, and the Lockheed Martin C130. The company was founded in 1973 and is based in Gardena, CA (www.impresaaerospace.com).

“The creation of Impresa was a ‘golden opportunity.’ The companies were similar in many ways, including the production lines, work ethic, work statements, and the customer base. When you consider the state of the industry, with demanding delivery schedules and increasing pressure on costs, building Impresa based on the strongest aspects of Venture and Swift-Cor just made sense,” said Jim Dauw, CEO of Impresa Aerospace.

Graycliff Partners is an independent investment firm focusing on middle market private equity, mezzanine and real estate investments in the United States and Latin America. Since 1991, the Graycliff Partners team, previously operating as HSBC Capital, has invested over $1 billion and completed in excess of 80 transactions. The firm has offices in New York, NY and São Paulo, Brazil (www.graycliffpartners.com).

Halyard Capital has formed Digital Fortress, a new data center co-location platform and has completed its first two purchases with the acquisitions of digital.forest and Fortress Co-location Services. Digital Fortress will serve as a platform for consolidating the highly fragmented data center marketplace in the Pacific Northwest and for select organic new data center build or refurbishment opportunities.

The strategy of Digital Fortress will be to capitalize on the underserved market of small to medium sized enterprises seeking to enhance their overall IT infrastructure capabilities through outsourcing with co-location service providers. The company is currently evaluating the refurbishment of an existing data center space located in downtown Seattle, which would provide Digital Fortress customers with multi-site data center redundancy and increased growth capacity. The company is based in Seattle, WA (www.forest.net).

Halyard has identified the following trends to support its data center consolidation strategy: IT supply/IT demand imbalance; growth in IT outsourcing; growth in Internet traffic and bandwidth demand; and an increased focus on disaster recovery and regulatory demands.

Halyard has been proactively pursuing investment opportunities within the IT Infrastructure & Services sector. The firm has experience with data center infrastructure and IP networking solutions businesses, having previously been an investor in Inflow Communications, which managed data centers that provided co-location services and other value-added network services. Halyard sold its investment in Inflow Communications in January 2005 to Sungard Data Systems.

“During the past few years, we have seen increasing demand in the market for high quality, power dense co-location services, driven by significant growth in digital information and enterprise migration towards IT outsourcing, as well as fundamental advancements in computing technologies, which Digital Fortress is uniquely positioned to deliver,” said Robert Pistilli, Vice President at Halyard Capital.
Halyard is partnering with Meritage Funds and Sweetwater Capital in forming Digital Fortress, with Mark Hughes, former Chief Financial Officer of Inflow Communications and Executive Vice President of Operations at SunGard Availability Services, serving as Executive Chairman.
“Digital Fortress will differentiate its service offering by delivering high-density power applications serviced with a highly efficient and effective operating model,” said Mark Hughes. “We believe this model will deliver best-in-class infrastructure solutions comparable to nationally recognized competitors, but at a more attractive value to customers.”

Halyard Capital is a New York-based private equity firm with over $600 million of capital under management, focused on investing opportunities within the media, communications and business services industries. Halyard specializes in middle-market leveraged buyouts and growth equity investments (www.halyard.com).

“Meritage is pleased to re-enter the data center market with the establishment of the Digital Fortress platform and to reconnect with Mark Hughes, Halyard and Sweetwater in the process. We have great confidence in this team’s ability to serve the needs of Digital Fortress’ growing base of true enterprise customers,” added Derek Pilling, Managing Director at Meritage Funds.

Meritage invests in technology services businesses. The firm manages three investment funds representing more than $600 million of committed capital and is currently investing Meritage Fund III. Meritage was founded in 1998 and is based in Denver, CO (www.meritagefunds.com).

Sweetwater Capital is a family office private equity fund led by William Marraccini. Sweetwater invests primarily in communications infrastructure service businesses. The firm was founded in 2005 and is based in Red Bank, NJ (no website found).

Webster Bank provided debt financing for the transactions. digital.forest, Inc. was advised by Media Venture Partners.

GTCR has entered into a partnership with Telecom Lease Advisors, a telecom land lease acquisition firm led by Jarred Saba and Andrew Corkern. GTCR has committed up to $150 million of equity capital to fund TLA’s growth. GTCR’s investment in TLA will be made from GTCR Fund X with $3.25 billion of committed capital.

Telecom Lease Advisors is a financial services and telecom lease consulting firm that works with telecom lease or cell tower lease owners on lease acquisition, lease negotiation, and financial or real estate issues related to telecom leases. The company’s principals have overseen the direct acquisition of over 1,000 such leases with individual real estate investors, businesses, non-profit organizations, and municipalities. The company is based in Marina Del Rey, CA (www.tladv.com).

We are excited to have the opportunity to partner with the executives at TLA, Jarred Saba and Andrew Corkern, proven leaders in the acquisition of land interests underlying the key infrastructure of wireless networks,” said David Donnini, Principal at GTCR. “This investment exemplifies our strategy of partnering with industry leaders and we look forward to helping TLA leverage its deep industry expertise.”

“We believe this partnership will provide TLA with the financial means to develop further its origination capability and take the business to the next level,” said Jarred Saba, Chief Executive Officer of TLA. “We look forward to expanding both our team and our portfolio to build the company.”

GTCR pioneered the investment strategy of identifying and partnering with executives to acquire and build companies through a combination of acquisitions and internal growth. The firm currently has nearly $7 billion in assets under management. Since its inception, GTCR has invested more than $8.5 billion in over 200 companies. The firm was founded in 1980 and is located in Chicago, IL (www.gtcr.com).