KPS Capital Partners

Co-founders Michael Psaros and David Shapiro share Managing Partner responsibilities and jointly oversee the firm's investment committee. Raquel Palmer serves as Co-Managing Partner, expanding the senior leadership. KPS's managing partners maintain majority ownership of the firm.

KPS sources proprietary transactions by targeting corporate carve-outs, spinoffs, and bankruptcy reorganizations where industrial businesses are being shed by parent companies. The firm avoids competitive auctions for healthy companies and instead negotiates directly with corporate sellers undergoing strategic restructurings or distress. This approach favors complex, operationally intensive situations that generalist firms lack the expertise to underwrite.

KPS invests exclusively through direct control buyouts and does not allocate capital to external funds. Every dollar the firm deploys goes into operating companies that it intends to run and transform. The firm's two fund strategies — a flagship special situations vehicle and a mid-cap fund — both pursue the same direct-control model, differentiated only by transaction size.

KPS invests exclusively in industrial sectors — automotive supply, aerospace components, building materials, consumer durables, packaging, and capital equipment. The firm avoids technology, healthcare, financial services, and consumer internet businesses entirely. Its investment thesis depends on operational complexity that is unique to tangible manufacturing enterprises.

KPS establishes each acquired company as a fully independent entity with its own CEO, board of directors, and standalone balance sheet. The firm does not layer portfolio companies under a shared management platform. Instead, KPS operating partners work directly with each company's leadership to drive turnaround plans, creating accountability lines that are specific to the operational demands of each asset.

KPS generally does not syndicate equity with outside co-investors. The firm maintains full control of its transactions and limits outside participation to preserve decision-making autonomy over the operational turnaround process. This structural preference distinguishes KPS from firms that routinely offer co-investment slots to limited partners or strategic partners.

KPS invests across North America and Europe, with a particular concentration in German manufacturing. A Frankfurt office supports its European operations, reflecting the region's dense industrial base. The firm's investor base is global, but its deal footprint remains concentrated in developed-market industrial economies.