Stone Arch Capital

Stone Arch Capital

Stone Arch Capital was founded in Minneapolis and built its franchise on control equity investments in lower-middle-market companies, primarily in the Midwest. The firm’s partners, Charles Lannin and Clayton Miller, have shaped an investment approach centered on family business transitions, succession, and growth — drawing on over 100 years of collective private equity experience and the purchase or sale of more than 150 companies. The firm’s name, taken from the historic Stone Arch Bridge spanning the Mississippi River, is a deliberate reference to the region’s industrial heritage and the firm’s emphasis on durable, long-term business building. The firm historically targeted a range of industries — including manufacturing, business services, distribution, and consumer products — and structured investments conservatively to insulate portfolio companies from downturns. Stone Arch’s model relied on direct, control-oriented equity positions, often tailored to address the unique needs of founders and management teams. The firm complemented its in-house team with an external Advisory Council, which brought decades of operating experience across manufacturing, service, and distribution sectors. While the firm’s specific portfolio companies are not publicly listed, it emphasizes a record of driving revenue and headcount growth within its investments. Geographic focus remained overwhelmingly on the Midwestern United States. Stone Arch Capital operates from a single office in Minneapolis. Its listed team includes eight investment and operations professionals under the leadership of Lannin and Miller, supported by a CFO/CCO and an experienced advisory group. The firm has publicly stated it is no longer making new platform investments, marking a strategic shift to maximizing value in its remaining holdings and considering add-on acquisitions for existing companies. This posture — publicly declaring the end of platform investing while actively managing legacy assets — signals a mature, wind-down phase for the current fund structure. Structurally, Stone Arch’s differentiation has always been its narrow geographic and operational focus: a Midwestern-only, control-equity strategy with an explicit commitment to conservative leverage and direct management partnership. In its current chapter, the firm has become a vehicle for managed exit rather than fresh deployment — a relatively rare posture to state openly, and one that distinguishes its decision-making transparency from many peers still marketing active fundraising.