Ranger Aerospace LLC said on Monday that it has partnered with Azalea Capital

to form a new holding company, Ranger AeroSystems, Inc., to jointly pursue investments and acquisitions in the aerospace industry .

The private equity partnership is focused on several lower middle market aerospace segments including precision manufacturing, component overhaul, and specialty maintenance, repair and overhaul technical services companies with value propositions supporting commercial or military aircraft. Ranger said that as the partnership evolves additional capital partners could join.

Ranger Aerospace President CEO Steve Townes
Ranger Aerospace President CEO Steve Townes

“This combination of proven management experts and strong investors bodes well for building a large and lasting enterprise,” Steve Townes, CEO of Ranger Aerospace, said in a statement. “We have plenty of dry powder and a long runway, and we are focused on aerospace industry segments where middle market consolidations are there for the making. We’ve done this several times before in a big way. We’re doing it again.”

Ranger Aerospace said that the partnership’s preferred investments are in United States-based companies with at least $10 million in sales with scalable operations.

In the precision manufacturing area, Ranger AeroSystems will focus on sole source and limited source highly engineered flight critical parts on long-life fixed-wing and rotary-wing platforms. In the component overhaul area, the partnership will focus on value added solutions for components, rotables, and sub-assemblies on any airborne system with a focus on actuating systems.