How Platinum’s ‘Hands-On’ Approach Led to $1.35B (CAD) Héroux-Devtek Acquisition

Founded in 1942 to specialize in the machine tooling of aircraft components, Héroux-Devtek has grown into a leading global manufacturer of landing gears and aerospace products.

With a history that features the construction of the landing gear for the lunar module that Neil Armstrong piloted on the famed Apollo 11 mission, Héroux-Devtek has expanded to become the third largest manufacturer of landing gears in the world.

Platinum Equity completed the acquisition of Héroux-Devtek in early 2025 after a review of strategic alternatives by the company. The deal featured a sales process where the firm emerged as the preferred buyer after a “hands-on” diligence process in the public-to-private transaction. To determine financial health, private equity firms typically want more extensive data than what public companies usually make available through earnings reports.

“During diligence we went line by line, contract by contract almost like we were auditing this company to be comfortable because we had to pay for some of that pricing as we were looking to move forward,” Platinum Equity Managing Director Delara Zarrabi said of the challenges.

“I think (Platinum’s) diligence approach differentiated us, an approach which was hands-on, requiring spending a lot of time with management, spending a lot of time on the ground, using the data we had in an intelligent way in order to come to the right conclusions.”

Platinum Equity Co-President Louis Samson, who is a Quebec native, played an active role.

“I might’ve been the bridge in between a little bit, helping to pour a foundation that was really important to not only completing the deal but also getting us off to good start after the deal,” Samson said during a visit to the company’s Quebec-based headquarters this summer.

“We have a big team, we have multi-discipline team, and we can sort of reconcile what’s going on despite the (data) not being exactly formatted the way financial people like to consume it. I think that’s a big part of how this whole process played to our strengths because we were able to decipher things that you just needed to be there to understand.

“We love this raw sort of deal, but it also comes with challenges.”

The acquisition closed earlier this year after regulatory approvals. Platinum Equity agreed to pay $32.50 in cash per share, representing a total enterprise value of $1.35 billion Canadian dollars.

Samson and Zarrabi provided more details about the acquisition.

(Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity).

Q: Who are the primary customers?

Zarrabi: The largest commercial aerospace and defense original equipment manufacturers globally. You think about Boeing. You think about Northrup. You think about Airbus. You think about Boeing Defense. Those are the types of customers.

Q: What are your thoughts on the Canadian market?

Samson: We’ve always been interested in Canada. I think that it is an interesting market that we’re always canvassing. I think every time you make an impactful investment in a market, you gather some steam, you gather some forward progress, people call you, people ask about you. And even though you can be interested in a market, there’s no substitute for being perceived as a good citizen, as a responsible investor in that market. I think this transaction has really unlocked a lot of people saying good things about us. I know that the company feels pretty good about it, and I think that’s the best marketing you can have.

Q: Why was Platinum Equity attracted to this business?

Samson: We have been following this business for quite a long time, probably for around 20 years. I always liked the business profile, and the substance of the business hadn’t been fully recognized by the market in which it was trading (largely Canadian investors). We thought the business profile might just be better than what it was getting credit for. From the outside looking, that’s what made us interested in this.

Samson: We’ve been invested in aerospace/defense on and off for the better part of the last 15, 20 years. I think we have invested a lot of time in not only understanding the sector but networking in the sector. And we’re doing that across the platform, whether it’s our Small Cap platform, our Large Cap platform, both in Europe and North America.

Q: There was significant Canadian media interest in this transaction. Explain to us the factors that led to that interest.

Samson: Investing in Canada, much less in Quebec, always comes with some level of protectionism. There are regulatory bodies that help ensure businesses aren’t going to be acquired and just stripped out of the local market. We knew this was going to be a sensitive point, but we care about this stuff.

Q: How did we address those concerns?

Samson: We want the business to thrive here. This is where it’s from, the heart and soul is here, and we never really ever contemplated doing anything other than what they wanted. But assurances are needed, so we did commit to keeping the headquarters here. We committed to keeping the R&D center here. Those are easy commitments to make because you wouldn’t want them anywhere else anyway.

Zarrabi: Louis’s background was really, really helpful. He understood the situation going into this deal, so we were able to build relationships with the right constituents. We were able to understand what their concerns were and come to the right place.

Q: In the deal announcement, the company said it reviewed strategic alternatives before the acquisition. How did Platinum Equity differentiate itself during this process?

Samson: This was a process that we kind of had to find our way to. It was being run by Canadian banks. It was not a process that was being marketed heavily in the U.S. I think it was quite a targeted, strategic review with the focus on sponsors with aerospace and defense experience.

We knew there was a sponsor that was ahead of us and was kind of frontrunning. That’s when we kicked into high gear – not only from an actual work perspective – but that’s where we started to differentiate ourselves. We built a real strong relationship with the management team.

Zarrabi: The company was a publicly traded company, and I think it always traded at a discount to its peers, so I think the board felt like it was the right time (for a strategic review for shareholders). They ran a competitive process. They were trying to find the right value for this business because it’s a Canadian public company, not as well known in the North American market.

They reached out to buyers that understood the industry so there was a little bit of a high barrier to entry. You need to understand aerospace and defense. They needed to believe that you were actually interested in the asset. (Platinum’s A&D experience includes PAE, divested in 2022, and Unical Aviation, which divested earlier in 2025.)

Q: Anything else to mention about the process?

Samson: The circumstances were probably tricky for the average private equity firm. It was highly conducive to spend a lot of time with this management team, and that plays to our strength. We like to do things this way; all-day meetings were no problem for these guys. Twenty-five people in a room for eight hours, we love that. We would much rather do that and feel the people and understand what they’re about than just staring at a perfectly laid out data room. I think we do better when we’re seen in action and they can see us as not only as professionals, but as humans.

Q: What are the economic trends that favor this deal?

Zarrabi: We very much believe in the long-term macro dynamics in both commercial aerospace and defense. These are sectors that we believe in when you look at passenger travel growth and the growth expected in aerospace.

Q: What are the major points of the investment thesis?

Zarrabi: I’ll start with downside protection. When you think about this business, you think of highly complex parts, customers with extremely stringent quality and delivery requirements, very high switching costs, so it provides real downside protection and recurring revenue.

In addition to that, I would say a significant portion of this company’s earnings – and this is one of the gems that we found as we underwrote our diligence – comes from aftermarket, higher margin, highly recurring, really steady business, as well as defense. When I think about the portfolio of business that supports this investment, it’s highly defensive in nature because it comes from the aftermarket, and it comes from defense.

Q: What’s the potential for value creation?

Samson: The way we win in this investment is by growing the business. The business has a very large backlog that gives us confidence growth is achievable through supporting this management team in executing against that backlog to do so in a way that is operationally sound.

Zarrabi: I think there’s an opportunity to infuse M&A, to further diversify this business, and make its portfolio even more diverse and more defensive. I think we really feel that we can infuse the Platinum Equity playbook in this company. It is a company that has not necessarily had the capital or the resources to drive transformational operational improvement in areas like manufacturing excellence, working capital. I really do believe that we can drive the Platinum playbook in this company that has been public for all these decades and drive that improvement during our hold.