Houlihan Lokey Advises JLL Partners

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that private equity firm JLL Partners completed the acquisition of Jonathan Engineered Solutions (Jonathan), a global market leader in the design and manufacturing of highly engineered enclosures, slides, and isolators for defense, commercial aerospace, and specialty industrial end-markets. The transaction closed on December 22, 2020.

JLL Partners is a middle market private equity firm with over three decades of experience transforming businesses in the healthcare, specialty industrials, and business services sectors. It has been a long-time investor in the aerospace and defense sector, investing in six platforms representing over 25 companies since 2007. Since its founding in 1988, JLL Partners has committed over $5.5 billion of equity capital across eight private equity funds, with over 55 platform investments and more than 190 add-on acquisitions.

With a legacy that spans nearly 70 years, Jonathan’s ruggedized solutions are used aboard U.S. Navy ships and in other defense, aerospace, and high-performance industrial applications. In the defense sector, Jonathan products safely house electronics hardware for mission critical communications, networking, and defensive systems. In the aerospace and industrial markets, the company supports applications that require highly engineered, no-fail mechanical components such as business jets and emergency response vehicles. Jonathan’s products are built to withstand the harshest operating environments and customized to meet demanding end-user requirements. Based in Irvine, California, the company will serve as the base of a new design- and engineering-focused aerospace and defense manufacturing platform, with compelling opportunities to grow both organically and inorganically.

Houlihan Lokey served as the financial advisor to JLL Partners and assisted the firm in the due diligence, valuation, and negotiation of the transaction. This deal highlights Houlihan Lokey’s leading experience in the aerospace, defense, and government services industries.

Houlihan Lokey’s Aerospace, Defense & Government (ADG) practice within the global Industrials Group is a leading M&A advisor to aerospace, defense, and government services companies. Since the beginning of 2020, the team has closed more than 25 transactions worth nearly $5.6 billion in enterprise value. With a staff of approximately 30 investment bankers in Washington, D.C., London, and Los Angeles, Houlihan Lokey’s ADG practice is among the largest dedicated industry banking groups worldwide. In 2020, the Industrials Group was once again ranked as the No. 1 M&A advisor for all U.S. industrial transactions, according to Refinitiv (formerly known as Thomson Reuters).