SK Capital

Investment decisions are made by the Executive Committee, which includes co-founders Barry Siadat and Jamshid Keynejad, along with Managing Directors Jack Norris, Aaron Davenport, and Mario Toukan. The team is built from career operators and investors across the specialty chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries.

SK Capital deploys capital through two programs: the Flagship strategy targets upper mid-market and large companies, while the Catalyst funds, established in 2019, focus on lower mid-market businesses. Both apply the same operational-improvement playbook, but Catalyst is calibrated for smaller, often more complex carve-out or succession-driven situations.

The firm executes control buyouts, recapitalizations, growth equity investments, and corporate carve-outs. It gravitates toward situations with operational or technical complexity — divestitures from large corporates, family-owner successions, and underperforming assets — where its in-house operating team can drive a turnaround.

SK Capital operates with an intentionally narrow mandate. The firm does not invest outside of the specialty materials, ingredients, and life sciences sectors. It avoids sectors such as generalist industrials, consumer products, financial services, and software, where its chemistry- and manufacturing-focused operating model would offer no edge.

SK Capital is an institutional private equity firm, not a family office. It manages committed capital raised across seven funds from external limited partners. While the firm is closely identified with its founding partners, it operates as a traditional, closed-end fund manager.

The firm's strategy emphasizes control positions, which typically limits the need for passive co-investment syndicates. When it does partner, the team prefers co-investors with complementary industry knowledge. The firm will also structure deals where existing owners, such as a family or management team, roll over a stake to participate in the future value SK Capital aims to create.

Deal flow originates from decades of relationships in the chemical and pharmaceutical C-suites, corporate carve-out pipelines from industrial conglomerates, and its reputation as a knowledgeable buyer for technically complex businesses. The firm’s team of former plant managers and sector CEOs often identify off-market succession and divestiture opportunities before they reach broader auction.