Ward Mcnally

Ward McNally founded McNally Capital in 2008 to continue his family’s legacy of owning and operating private companies. The firm describes itself as a private investment firm focused on founder-, family-, and management-led lower-middle-market companies, especially in Aerospace & Defense and Industrial Technology & Services.

Before founding McNally Capital, McNally spent ten years as a partner at The Edgewater Funds and Hammond Kennedy Whitney & Company. Earlier in his career, he worked at Benedetto, Gartland & Company on private placements for private equity funds, at Caremark International’s Physician Resources Division on M&A, and at Bank of America in the Financial Engineering and Risk Management Group.

McNally holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is currently Chairman of FedData, Orbis Operations, and Xcelerate Solutions; he was previously Chairman of ITS Logistics and Advanced Micro Instruments and a board director of Genesys Aerosystems. He is also a member of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Visitors, YPO, and Business Executives for National Security.

• McNally Capital’s stated approach is: “Thesis-Driven. Expert-Informed. Rigorously Executed.”
• The firm is not a seed-stage angel investor in its current positioning; it targets lower-middle-market private equity opportunities with $5-30M EBITDA and $15-65M of equity.
• McNally Capital focuses on Aerospace & Defense because of mission-critical use cases, high barriers to entry, and long-term demand drivers.
• In Aerospace & Defense, the firm highlights aerospace platforms and components, aerospace support and services, national security defense technology, and national security government services.
• In Industrial Technology & Services, the firm targets industrial technology and automation, industrial and commercial services, and industrial equipment and manufacturing.
• The firm seeks majority equity stakes in U.S. and Canada-based companies where the management team will remain involved and invest alongside McNally.