Argand Partners launches as Castle Harlan spinoff

Four executives that left Castle Harlan earlier this year have formed Argand Partners, a New York-based middle-market firm, according to a filing and the firm’s website.

It’s not clear if the firm is in fundraising mode, but it’s set up an office in New York and filed a Form ADV with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Howard Morgan, formerly co-president of Castle Harlan, is now partner and senior managing director of Argand Partners. Tariq Osman and Heather Faust, both ex-managing directors at Castle Harlan, work as partners and managing directors at Argand Partners.

Hemali Dassani works as director of investor relations and chief compliance officer at Argand Partners, according to a filing. She worked as director of investor relations at Castle Harlan, according to her LinkedIn page.

The new firm emerged as Castle Harlan, which changed its name to CHI Equity, told LPs earlier this year it would scrap Fund VI, which was targeting $800 million. The firm said it would continue to manage out investments in Funds IV and V.

Argand Partners declined to comment.

Argand plans to make control investments in the middle market, with a focus on industrials and industrial-related energy and consumer companies. The firm targets companies with enterprise values of $100 million to $500 million.

On its website, the firm said it takes its name from the Argand lamp, a light that provided a more powerful beacon for lighthouses.

In a 2014 interview with Buyouts on the top quartile performance of Castle Harlan Fund V, Morgan cited the success of the firm’s buyout of IDQ, a maker of do-it-yourself auto maintenance products that doubled its EBITDA before a sale to Kinderhook Industries.

In the same interview, Morgan also described the firm’s 2013 buyout of Shelf Drilling from Transocean Ltd as contrarian, since the company focused on the less popular shallow water offshore oil drilling business.

Action Item: Argand Partners website, http://www.argandequity.com/.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

Correction: An earlier version of this story contained an incorrect spelling for the last name of Agand’s director of investor relations. It’s Hemali Dassani, not Hemali Dessani.