In 2018, the aerospace sector was “hot”, as described by Rob Johnson, an investor in the Yorkshire and North East team of BGF, a UK & Ireland-focused growth capital investor. Boeing and Airbus were facing record backlogs of aircraft orders, and this, in turn, was fuelling demand across the aerospace supply chain for high quality, responsive supply partners. This extended downstream to raw material suppliers and early stage manufacturers, such as forges, for which there was finite supply capacity.
“When it comes to forged components for the aerospace industry, there’s no real alternative,” explains Johnson. “The unique metallurgical properties needed for safety-critical components going into high-temperature, high-pressure environments can only be achieved through this traditional process – heating and hammering metal. You can’t replace that with plastics, additive manufacturing, or other modern manufacturing processes.”
With OEMs and tier-one suppliers wanting faster, more agile partners, alternatives to the major players who dominated the global forging industry were needed. Here, BGF saw an opportunity in IFA.
The thesis
Set up to address the SME funding gap in the United Kingdom (UK), since 2011, BGF has invested over £4.5bn of patient, minority capital including more than £1bn of follow-on funding to support existing portfolio companies. Backed by major UK high-street banks, including Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, and NatWest, BGF invests in companies across a variety of funding stages, sectors, and regions and has recently announced a commitment to invest more than £3bn in UK businesses over the next five years.
“It’s not about sectors – it’s about backing companies at the right growth stage, with the right shareholder dynamics, who want a minority partner to support their strategy – whether that be a capex, M&A, people, sales & marketing, product development or international-led plan,” explains Johnson.
Independent Forgings and Alloys (IFA), based in Sheffield with a history dating back to 1587, fit the thesis.
The firm operated an open-die forging, machining, and testing business, providing mission critical components across the aerospace, defence, energy, and industrial sectors, exporting to Europe, Asia, and North America.
Management also had a proven track record of growing the business through multiple economic cycles, pivoting the commercial focus to aerospace following a period of growth driven by the oil and gas sector up until the mid-teens.
In March 2018, BGF invested to support the expansion of IFA’s manufacturing capacity and go-to-market strategy.
Navigating a volatile market
Before BGF’s investment, IFA had limited experience of working with an institutional investor. One of the first moves was to recruit a non-executive chair and introduce a more formal and structured governance and reporting framework to allow decision making to be led by data and insights.
“The team was strong commercially and operationally; they knew their market inside and out,” Johnson notes. “BGF complemented this by encouraging a more strategic approach when it came to appraising new opportunities and assessing potential risks alongside bringing significant expertise in M&A, funding and exit planning. We wanted to help the team double down on what they were already doing well by introducing scalable processes and build the data set that a buyer would ultimately want to see when the time came to exit.”
Initially, the growth plan centred around a multi-million-pound capex project to expand and enhance the company’s ring manufacturing capabilities – a metalworking technique that forms ring-shaped parts by steadily rolling a metal blank between two rotating rollers.
However, as BGF and management evaluated risks and ROI, another opportunity presented itself: the acquisition of a neighbouring business, Doncasters Precision Forge. The move would double IFA’s site footprint while complementing the firm’s pre-existing offerings with the introduction of closed-die forging capabilities.
“IFA had long viewed Doncasters as a potential acquisition target,” says Johnson.
That pivot, which Johnson describes as “the single biggest decision on the growth journey,” allowed IFA to develop new programmes of work and access new customers.
Of course, there were plenty of setbacks: Brexit created trade frictions, Covid disrupted supply chains, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine impacted raw material availability, and then the US and UK elections, alongside the war in the Middle East, led to geopolitical instability that raised input costs and uncertainty.
Andy McGuinness, a former metals trader and IFA’s Founder and CEO, played an essential role during this time, Johnson says, helping the company navigate a supplier shift, adjust production plans, and navigate manufacturing line bottlenecks.
“It was a great example of an entrepreneur adapting to a constantly changing environment, and doing it effectively,” Johnson explains.
The return
By late 2023, the team recognised it was time to start thinking about exit. “It wasn’t a matter of having hit a hard and fast revenue or EBITDA target, it was just the right time to go,” Johnson recalls. “The business had grown exceptionally well post-Covid and had a strong pipeline that underpinned future growth”.
Over BGF’s hold period, IFA more than doubled revenues and tripled profits. The broader market was also favourable – and continues to be so.
Investment in defence surged in Q1 2025, with the announced value of private equity and venture capital-backed investments in aerospace and defence totalling $4.27bn globally – almost on par with the $4.31bn invested in the sector in all of 2024, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.
The European Commission’s proposed $158bn fund to increase defence spending, as well as Germany’s €500bn infrastructure and defence spending package, point to ongoing momentum in the sector.
“We didn’t let the market dictate our timing, but we’d have been naïve to ignore rising geopolitical tensions,” he says. “Whether that’s ultimately positive or negative for the industry is unclear – but we know the next crisis is never far away.”
Trive Capital, a US private equity firm with more than $8bn of assets under management, acquired a majority stake in IFA in February 20 25, following BGF’s seven-year partnership with the company.
The existing senior management team also re-invested as part of the transaction and will continue to lead the business.
