Relativity To Hold Certain Fund Close

Relativity Capital, a new buyout shop with roots in the Carlyle Group and Cerberus Capital Management, expects to close on about $300 million for its first fund by the end of the year, a source familiar with the effort told Buyouts.

The Arlington Va.-based firm has already made two investments this year. In March it bought Berkshire Manufactured Products, a Newburyport, Mass.-based manufacturer of components used in the aircraft, aerospace, automotive and medical industries. In April it bought Nivisys Industries LLC, a Tempe, Ariz.–based maker of night-vision equipment. The firm didn’t reveal terms for either deal.

Leslie Armitage, senior managing director and a former partner at Carlyle Group, and Joyce Johnson-Miller, senior managing director and former managing director at Cerberus Capital, founded the firm in 2006. Relativity looks to write checks of $5 million to $30 million for buyouts and investments in distressed companies in aerospace and defense, automotive, business services, consumer, manufacturing and health care. Most of its targets are in North America.

Investors in the fund include Michigan 21st Century Investment Fund and the Philadelphia Pension Fund, according to Capital IQ.

The firm has eight investment professionals and a nine-member advisory board. The advisory board is stacked with people connected to the military and the aerospace and defense industry, including Dr. Bahman Atefi, president at Alion Science and Technology Corp., an aerospace and defense company; Francis Raborn, a former vice president and CFO of BAE Systems Land and Armaments; and Harold Gehman. A former admiral of the U.S. Navy, Gehman sits on the boards of several companies and also serves as a senior fellow at the National Defense University and a member of the board of advisors for the Anser Institute for Homeland Security, a federally funded research and development center supporting the Department of Homeland Security.

The firm did not return a call requesting comment.