Arlington Capital Partners completes sale of Forged Solutions Group

Arlington Capital Partners, a Washington, D.C.-area private investment firm specializing in government regulated industries, today announced the sale of Forged Solutions Group, Inc. (FSG), a leading global provider of complex, precision forgings to aerospace, defense and space customers, to J.F. Lehman & Company (JFLCO). FSG produces mission-critical components for complex and demanding applications ranging from commercial and military aircraft engines, space launch systems, and advanced energy and industrial machinery.

Leveraging its deep expertise in highly regulated industries, Arlington identified structural supply constraints in the precision forging supply chain and, through the creation of FSG in 2019, the opportunity to address those gaps by building a scaled, Tier 1 forgings provider. In partnership with the management team during its ownership period, Arlington executed a focused growth strategy that included four strategic acquisitions – three of which were carve-out transactions – and strengthened the leadership team with the addition of a second-time Arlington CEO, Olivier Jarrault, a new CFO, Commercial Director and independent Board Director and significantly upgraded and expanded the Company’s facilities. These initiatives expanded FSG’s manufacturing capabilities, increased its production capacity, broadened its product capabilities and significantly expanded its margins. In parallel, Arlington supported a growth oriented commercial strategy centered on establishing and deepening partnerships with all major customers in the industry. Today, FSG employs more than 850 people across seven manufacturing facilities totaling more than 1.5 million square feet in the United States and United Kingdom.

“Against a backdrop of strong secular tailwinds for aerospace and defense markets, the precision forging industry was constrained by bottlenecks, resulting in long lead times and poor customer service levels,” said Peter Manos, a Managing Partner at Arlington Capital Partners. “With FSG, we set out to address this shortfall by building a scaled, high-performance platform capable of executing on the industry’s most mission-critical programs while delivering the reliability and responsiveness the market demanded. The Company’s success underscores its world-class technical expertise, commitment to innovation and exceptional leadership. We are proud of what the team has built and look forward to FSG’s continued success in this next chapter.”

Olivier Jarrault, CEO of FSG added: “I am incredibly proud of the progress our team has achieved over the past six years and am grateful for Arlington’s strategic partnership. The firm’s deep aerospace and defense industry expertise, guidance and support has allowed us to build FSG into one of the leading forging specialists. We look forward to partnering with J.F. Lehman & Company to chart our next growth chapter and to continue delivering exceptional forging and innovation services to our customers.”

Henry Albers, a Managing Director at Arlington, said: “FSG exemplifies one of Arlington’s core strategies of building market-leading companies in mission-critical segments of the aerospace and defense supply chain. We saw an opportunity to address the persistent supply and performance constraints in the industry, and through disciplined execution in partnership with management, built a company of strategic importance to its customers and the broader industrial base.”

Goldman Sachs and Perella Weinberg served as financial advisors and Sheppard Mullin served as counsel for FSG.