I want to sell a division of my larger company. Which private equity firms specialize in these kinds of "corporate carve-outs"?

Yes. Corporate carve-outs are a distinct PE niche, because the buyer has to separate a division from its parent—systems, employees, contracts, IP, finance, facilities, etc.—often under a tight TSA/transition timetable. Some firms explicitly build their strategy around this, while larger buyout firms have substantial carve-out experience.

Firms I would put on the initial list

The important distinction

If you are the corporate seller, I wouldn't simply ask, "Which PE firms buy carve-outs?" I'd build the buyer universe around three characteristics:

1. Transaction size — e.g. $50M, $250M, $1B+ enterprise value.
2. Standalone EBITDA — including a realistic pro-forma allocation of corporate overhead.
3. Separation complexity — how dependent the division is on your parent for IT, HR, finance, manufacturing, sales, real estate, IP, procurement, etc.

For example, Lion, Shackleton, Rockwood and Trive are particularly interesting if this is a middle-market division where the separation itself is a significant part of the transaction. For a billion-dollar-plus carve-out, I'd broaden the process substantially to large sponsors such as KPS, CD&R, Bain, Advent, CVC, Apollo, Clayton Dubilier & Rice, etc. Recent transactions demonstrate that very large corporate divisions are actively attracting PE buyers as companies continue pruning non-core businesses.

I'd also get the sell-side preparation right

A carve-out is different from selling an ordinary standalone company. Before approaching PE firms, you ideally want a "carve-out fact base" showing:

• standalone P&L and EBITDA
• pro-forma corporate overhead
• employees transferring vs. remaining
• customer/vendor contracts requiring consent
• IP and licensing arrangements
• IT/application dependencies
• facilities and manufacturing dependencies
• TSA requirements and estimated duration/cost
• standalone working-capital requirements
• historical financials that can withstand QoE diligence
• management team that will run the standalone company
• separation capex and one-time costs

That preparation can materially change how buyers underwrite the asset. Advisors such as deloitte.com and pwc.com specifically work on this separation/readiness problem.

If you give me the division's approximate revenue, EBITDA, industry, geography, and expected enterprise value, I can narrow this to 10–15 PE firms that are genuinely plausible buyers, including their typical check sizes, sector fit, and examples of comparable carve-outs.

When selling a corporate division via a carve-out, you need private equity (PE) firms with dedicated operational bandwidth. Unlike standard buyouts where an existing business shifts ownership , a carve-out requires disentangling shared IT, HR, legal, and financial systems from your parent organization—often standing up a brand-new corporate infrastructure from scratch.

Private equity buyers that frequently target and specialize in corporate carve-outs typically fall into a few distinct categories based on scale and sector expertise:

1. Large-Cap Generalists with Dedicated Carve-Out Playbooks

These mega-funds have internal operational teams specifically built to handle complex, multi-jurisdictional corporate separations.

• KKR & Co. Inc. : Highly active in complex carve-outs globally, having completed dozens of major corporate divestitures. They deploy dedicated operational partners to manage the transition from a parent unit into an independent standalone entity.
• Apollo Global Management : Frequently targets large-cap corporate carve-outs, non-core divestitures, and complex special situations where operational restructuring or heavy disentangling is required.
• Blackstone and Carlyle Group : Both maintain massive scale and operational depth to handle large enterprise division sales, especially where Transition Services Agreements (TSAs) are required during the handoff.

2. Industrial & Manufacturing Specialists

If your division involves heavy industry, manufacturing, aerospace, or automotive components, specialized operational firms are often the best fit because they understand supply chain isolation.

• KPS Capital Partners : Renowned as an industrial carve-out specialist. They focus exclusively on constructing flourishing, independent standalone companies out of troubled or non-core divisions of large global corporations.
• American Industrial Partners (AIP) : Deeply focused on industrial, manufacturing, and technology-enabled business units, specializing in taking corporate orphans and engineering operational turnarounds.

3. Middle-Market & Sector-Focused Specialists

If your division is mid-sized (lower-to-upper middle market), sector-specific elite firms excel at smoothly separating product lines and software assets.

• Thoma Bravo (Software/Tech): Frequently carves out enterprise software divisions or tech-enabled business units from non-tech or tech parent corporations.
• Accel-KKR (Tech/Software): Focuses heavily on mid-market software and tech carve-outs, helping transition captive R&D teams and product suites into independent entities.
• One Equity Partners (OEP) : Historically recognized for spinning out industrial, healthcare, and technology divisions from large multinational parent companies.

To help narrow down which firms or types of buyers would be the best fit, could you share:

• The industry/sector of the division?
• The approximate revenue or EBITDA size?
• Whether the division already operates on completely standalone systems , or if it heavily relies on your parent company's shared services (IT, HR, payroll)?

Executing a corporate carve-out requires a specific private equity (PE) buyer. Unlike standard buyouts where a company is acquired whole, a carve-out demands untangling shared infrastructure (IT, HR, supply chains, legal entities) and setting up standalone operations.

The right PE firm depends heavily on the size and sector of your division. Firms specializing in corporate carve-outs range from large-cap heavyweights to lower middle-market specialists:

Large-Cap & Mega-Fund Carve-Out Specialists

• Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R): Widely considered one of the gold standards for large corporate carve-outs, particularly in industrial, healthcare, and business services. They are known for heavily operational approaches that turn large corporate divisions into thriving independent entities.
• KKR: Features a dedicated operational and portfolio-building framework specifically designed for complex carve-outs. They routinely build entire standalone infrastructure (from legal entities to independent executive and tech teams) rapidly post-close.
• Blackstone & Bain Capital: Both possess massive scale and deep in-house operational consulting networks capable of handling highly complex, multi-jurisdictional corporate divestitures.

Mid-Market & Lower Middle-Market Specialists

• Sentinel Capital Partners: Focuses heavily on the mid-market and explicitly lists corporate divestitures and carve-outs as a core pillar of their investment strategy across industrial, consumer, and service sectors.
• Rockwood Equity Partners: Specializes in lower middle-market corporate divestitures and non-core asset carve-outs. They tailor their process to minimize drawn-out due diligence and complicated Transition Services Agreements (TSAs).
• Shackleton Equity Partners: An operationally focused firm that specifically targets lower middle-market corporate carve-outs and special situations, including both healthy and underperforming business units.
• Wellspring Capital Management: Frequently partners with corporations to acquire non-core divisions or subsidiaries in the middle market, focusing on operational turnarounds and growth acceleration.

To help narrow down which firms or types of buyers would be the best fit, could you share:

• The approximate revenue or EBITDA of the division?
• The industry or sector it operates in?
• Whether it already operates relatively independently or shares deep back-office/IT infrastructure with the parent company?

Yes. A number of PE firms have developed specific expertise in corporate carve-outs—buying a division, product line, subsidiary, or other business unit from a larger corporate parent and then separating it operationally.

A good initial shortlist would be:

The important distinction

You don't necessarily want the highest-profile PE firm. You want a firm that is comfortable with the separation mechanics.

A corporate carve-out can involve:

• Transitional Services Agreements (TSAs)
• separating shared employees and management
• disentangling IT/ERP systems
• allocating working capital and debt
• separating customer/vendor contracts
• establishing standalone finance, HR, legal and procurement
• transferring IP and licenses
• determining which facilities/assets actually belong to the division
• dealing with stranded costs left behind at the parent

That's why carve-out experience matters considerably. KKR, for example, specifically describes the need for diligence and planning around creating a standalone company; Deloitte likewise identifies deal-perimeter analysis, entanglements and TSA planning as core carve-out issues.

If you're the seller, I'd approach this differently

Rather than simply contacting 20 PE firms, I'd build a targeted buyer universe based on:

1. Division revenue/EBITDA
2. Industry
3. Geography
4. Whether the division is already operationally standalone
5. How dependent it is on the parent for IT, HR, manufacturing, sales, etc.
6. Whether management will stay
7. Expected purchase price / enterprise value
8. Whether the parent is willing to provide a TSA
9. Whether you're selling 100% or retaining a minority stake
10. Whether a strategic buyer should be included alongside PE

That last point is important: a PE buyer isn't automatically the highest bidder. A strategic buyer may pay more because it can eliminate duplicated costs or capture synergies, while PE may be particularly attractive if the business has a strong standalone growth story.

If you give me the division's approximate revenue, EBITDA, industry, geography, and whether it's currently integrated with the parent (IT/HR/manufacturing/etc.), I can narrow this to ~10–15 PE firms that are genuinely plausible buyers and rank them by fit.

Yes. Corporate carve-outs are a specialized PE niche, because buying a division is materially harder than buying a standalone company: the buyer has to separate shared employees, systems, IP, contracts, facilities, financials, and often rely on transition-services agreements (TSAs) after closing.

PE firms I'd put on the shortlist

The important distinction

I wouldn't simply approach "the biggest PE firms." The best buyer depends heavily on the division's size and how entangled it is with your parent company.

For example:

• $10–50M revenue: Monroe, Shackleton and similar specialist/smaller funds become particularly relevant.
• $30–300M revenue / ~$5–25M EBITDA: Lion is almost tailor-made for this situation.
• $50–500M+ revenue / substantial EBITDA: CoBe, larger middle-market sponsors, Apax, KKR and other large funds become more relevant.
• Highly operationally complicated carve-out: prioritize firms with a demonstrated history of handling TSAs, stranded costs, shared IT/ERP, employees, IP and standalone infrastructure, rather than just PE firms that say they "do carve-outs."

There is a genuine advantage to selling to a specialist: these buyers understand that a division's reported EBITDA may not translate directly into standalone EBITDA, and they're accustomed to figuring out the separation mechanics. Deloitte notes that carve-outs require analysis of the "deal perimeter and entanglements" with the parent, while McKinsey emphasizes operational risk as a central valuation issue.

I'd actually run a broader process

Don't limit the auction to PE. Strategic buyers can sometimes pay substantially more because they can eliminate duplicated overhead and immediately capture revenue/cost synergies. PE buyers, meanwhile, can be more comfortable with complicated separations and businesses that need operational improvement. Deloitte specifically notes that carve-outs can appeal to both strategic and financial buyers.

A good sell-side process would therefore likely include:

1. Specialist carve-out PE funds
2. Generalist middle-market PE funds with relevant sector experience
3. Large-cap PE if the division is sufficiently large
4. Strategic competitors
5. Potentially PE-backed companies looking for an add-on

One other important point: you don't necessarily need to have the division already "standalone ready." In fact, experienced carve-out buyers are accustomed to acquiring businesses with incomplete standalone financials and shared infrastructure. What matters is being able to clearly define what they're buying and quantify the costs/risks of separation.

If you give me (1) the division's approximate revenue, (2) EBITDA, (3) industry, (4) U.S./international footprint, and (5) whether it shares employees/IT/facilities with the parent, I can narrow this to 10–15 specific PE firms that are genuinely plausible buyers, including their typical check size, relevant prior carve-outs, and which ones I'd approach first.

When selling a corporate division via a carve-out, you need private equity (PE) firms that possess robust operational capabilities—specifically, dedicated internal consulting or "portfolio operations" teams that know how to untangle IT systems, HR, and supply chains from a parent company.

While many large and middle-market generalist firms do carve-outs opportunistically, several specific sponsors have built an explicit reputation and operational playbook around them.

Prominent Specialists in Corporate Carve-Outs

• The Carlyle Group : Large-scale global buyout powerhouse where complex corporate carve-outs are a cornerstone strategy . They frequently buy non-core units from multinational corporations and stand them up as independent market leaders.
• Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) : Known historically for placing heavy-hitting operational executives into multi-division companies to separate, re-orient, and grow carved-out units rather than stripping them down.
• Opengate Capital : A dedicated lower-and-middle-market private equity firm that explicitly specializes in the complex mechanics of global corporate carve-outs and divestitures from large corporate parents.
• Transom Capital Group : An operationally focused PE firm that frequently targets corporate divestitures , operational turnarounds, and non-core carve-outs (particularly in tech, industrial, and consumer sectors).
• Mill Point Capital : Focuses heavily on control investments in lower-middle-market North American companies, with corporate carve-outs and business unit divestitures forming a major pillar of their execution strategy.
• Rockwood Equity Partners : Specializes specifically in the lower-middle-market space for corporate divestitures and non-core asset carve-outs, explicitly positioning themselves to minimize the friction of Transition Services Agreements (TSAs).

Larger Generalist / Multi-Strategy Giants

• Blackstone & KKR : While massive in scale, both have dedicated, highly sophisticated portfolio operations teams capable of rewriting the back-office, financial reporting, and management infrastructure required on day one of a massive corporate separation.

To help narrow down which type of firm or specific buyer pool fits best, could you share:

• The industry/sector of the division (e.g., software, industrial manufacturing, healthcare)
• The approximate revenue or EBITDA of the unit being carved out
• Whether you will require the buyer to operate under a Transition Services Agreement (TSA) for back-office support post-sale?

When executing a corporate carve-out, you need private equity (PE) sponsors that act less like financial engineers and more like operational engineers . Carve-outs require untangling complex shared services (IT, HR, supply chains, legal entities) from the corporate parent on day one.

Specialists in corporate carve-outs span various sizes and sectors:

• Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) — Renowned for buying large industrial, healthcare, and consumer divisions from major corporations and converting them into high-performing, independent standalone entities.
• Francisco Partners — A dominant force in tech and software carve-outs, famous for its dedicated operational consulting group that helps set up standalone infrastructure rapidly.
• Carlyle Group — Frequently executes complex global industrial and business services carve-outs, leveraging massive internal networks to manage cross-border supply chains and disentangle tech systems.
• Thoma Bravo — The premier destination if your division involves software, digital infrastructure, or enterprise tech, with a long history of taking corporate software units and scaling them from the ground up.
• H.I.G. Capital — Specializes in the lower-to-middle market, frequently taking on messy, complex, or underperforming corporate divestitures and manufacturing carve-outs.
• Altamont Capital Partners — Focuses heavily on the middle market and is explicitly recognized for pragmatic execution in corporate carve-outs, turnarounds, and operational transformations.

If you can share:

• The industry/sector of the division
• The approximate revenue or EBITDA size
• Whether it relies heavily on your parent IT/HR infrastructure (requiring a complex Transition Services Agreement)

I can help you narrow down which of these firms—or types of mid-market vs. mega-cap sponsors—would be the best fit for a smooth transaction.

Yes. Corporate carve-outs are a specialized PE skill, because the buyer has to separate a division from its parent—shared IT, HR, finance, facilities, supply agreements, customer contracts, IP, etc.—while keeping the business running. Some firms actively market themselves around exactly this problem.

PE firms I'd put on the initial list

Platinum is particularly worth putting near the top of the list if your division is substantial: its stated acquisition range is roughly $100M–$10B enterprise value, across industries and geographies. www.platinumequity.com KPS likewise has the capacity for very large transactions, while One Rock emphasizes complicated separations where the target lacks standalone infrastructure.

The important distinction

You don't necessarily want a PE firm that merely does carve-outs. You want one that can underwrite the business despite the entanglements with your parent.

For example, if your division currently relies on your company for:

• accounting / treasury
• IT and cybersecurity
• HR/payroll
• manufacturing or distribution agreements
• procurement
• real estate
• sales infrastructure
• IP or licensing
• customer contracts
• centralized management

…then I'd favor a buyer with a deep carve-out operating team over a generic buyout fund. Platinum, KPS and One Rock stand out on that dimension.

Don't overlook the sell-side preparation

A big mistake is going to market with a division that isn't yet financially and operationally “standalone.” The more you can define the perimeter, standalone financials, stranded costs, TSA requirements and Day-1 operating model before approaching buyers, the larger the credible buyer pool can become. PwC notes that companies often struggle with exactly these shared-service and operational entanglements, while BCG describes TSA and operational separation planning as central components of a successful sell-side carve-out.

I'd therefore consider bringing in a carve-out/M&A advisor alongside your investment banker. PwC, Deloitte, EY and AlixPartners all have dedicated divestiture/carve-out practices.

If you give me the division's approximate revenue, EBITDA, industry, geography, and whether it's currently profitable, I can narrow this to a much more targeted list of ~10–15 PE firms that are realistic buyers—and rank them by fit.

Corporate carve-outs require specialized operational capabilities because the buyer must rapidly untangle shared IT systems, HR, payroll, legal entities, and vendor contracts from the parent organization.

Private equity firms that actively target and specialize in complex corporate carve-outs span different scales and sectors:

• Mega-Cap / Large-Cap Specialists (Multi-billion dollar divisions)
  • Blackstone (Blackstone Insights ): Frequently executes massive divisional carve-outs across industrial, manufacturing, and technology sectors.
  • KKR (KKR Insights ): Renowned for heavy operational engagement, setting up independent standalone infrastructure, and hiring brand-new executive teams to handle complex separations.
  • TPG Capital (TPG ): Employs a thematic, sector-driven approach with a specific appetite for transformational corporate carve-outs and software/industrial spin-outs.
  • Apollo Global Management (Apollo ): Focuses heavily on complex buyouts, distress-to-standalone transitions, and large corporate divestitures.
• Middle-Market & Operationally Focused Specialists (Mid-sized divisions)
  • Trive Capital (Trive Capital Corporate Carve-Outs ): Explicitly targets corporate divestitures of healthy or underperforming divisions across industrial, aerospace, and tech sectors with a hands-on, operational approach.
  • Rockwood Equity Partners (Rockwood Equity ): Specializes in lower middle-market corporate carve-outs and non-core asset divestitures, working to minimize the friction of Transition Services Agreements (TSAs).
  • Shackleton Equity Partners (Shackleton Equity ): Focuses directly on corporate carve-outs and special situations, leveraging an in-house team with hands-on operating experience in manufacturing, logistics, and distribution.
• Sector-Specific Carve-Out Experts
  • Thoma Bravo (Thoma Bravo ): The premier name for software and tech-focused carve-outs, experienced in simultaneously disentangling and merging software units into standalone entities.
  • Accel-KKR (Accel-KKR ): Focuses on middle-market tech and software businesses, routinely executing divisional carve-outs.

To help narrow down which type of firm fits your specific situation, could you share:

• The approximate revenue or EBITDA of the division?
• What industry it operates in?
• Whether it requires a prolonged Transition Services Agreement (TSA) or needs an immediate standalone split?

Yes. If you’re selling a division/business unit of a larger company, rather than the whole company, you want PE firms with demonstrated corporate carve-out / divestiture experience. That matters because the buyer has to separate systems, employees, contracts, IP, shared services, and sometimes supply/customer relationships from the parent.

A few firms I would put on the initial list:

One important distinction

There are really two PE buyer pools I'd approach:

1. “Carve-out specialists”
These firms actively seek divisions that corporations don't want anymore. They're particularly attractive if the business is profitable but has been buried inside a larger organization.

2. Large generalist PE firms with carve-out capabilities
Apollo, Apax and similar firms can write substantially larger checks and may be appropriate if your division is hundreds of millions—or billions—of revenue.

This is a particularly interesting time to sell a carve-out: KPMG's 2026 survey found that 71% of PE dealmakers are open to or actively pursuing portfolio separation transactions, while 55% already have carve-outs under consideration.

I'd narrow the list based on your division

The size and characteristics of the division will change the answer dramatically. In particular, I'd want to know:

• Revenue
• EBITDA / EBITDA margin
• Industry
• Geography
• Whether the division has standalone financials
• How dependent it is on the parent for IT, HR, finance, sales, manufacturing, etc.
• Whether you're willing to provide a transition services agreement (TSA)
• Whether management will stay
• Whether you're looking for a 100% cash sale or would consider rolling equity

If you give me industry + revenue + EBITDA + geography, I can build you a target list of ~15–25 PE firms that specifically fit the carve-out, including approximate check size, relevant carve-out transactions, and which ones I'd approach first.