He was chairman and CEO of Arkla, a Fortune 500 natural gas company for over a decade, leading the company to become the largest natural gas distributor in the U.S. His career spans a number of prominent business and public positions, including White House Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton, Counselor to the President and Special Envoy for the Americas. The Firmament Group's non-executive chairman is Mack McLarty. Smith began his career at PaineWebber, where he worked in the industrials and equity capital markets groups within the firm's investment banking division.
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Smith was an investment professional at GarMark Partners, where he served as a principal and member of the firm's investment committee. Prior to joining McLarty Capital Partners, Mr.
He has focused exclusively on the lower-middle market for over 20 years. Earlier in his career, he worked in hotel related private equity with McKibbon Hotel Group and the Seaway Group where he continues to serve as an advisor.Ĭhristopher Smith leads The Firmament Group's investment efforts. McLarty served as a Governor-appointed commissioner and chairman of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. He also co-founded Caprocq, a real estate investment firm with properties across the central United States. McLarty was a founding executive of RML Automotive and helped build it into one of the nation's largest auto retailers. He has extensive experience as an operator and investor across a variety of sectors including transportation, real estate and finance. "By leveraging our deep industry expertise and our extensive global network, we offer unique, integrated and customized solutions that empower small businesses."įranklin McLarty leads The Firmament Group's strategic growth initiatives. As a result, entrepreneurs often settle for an imperfect outcome by taking on too much inflexible debt or more equity dilution than desired," added Christopher Smith, Co-Founder and Co-President of The Firmament Group. "In the decade following the financial crisis, many business owners have diminished access to needed capital and lack the guidance to maximize its utility. We have always helped entrepreneurs and business owners realize their goals by offering practical capital solutions in the most versatile and user-friendly manner," said Franklin McLarty, Co-Founder and Co-President of The Firmament Group. Like the expanse that is visible, protective and transparent, the name "firmament" symbolizes the close relationships we have with our portfolio companies. However they often find that flexible capital isn't readily available.
"Many entrepreneurs aspire to grow their businesses and are acutely aware of the need for capital to achieve their goals. To date, the firm has closed over 40 initial and follow-on investments totaling nearly $400 million of investment capital. Firmament's investments are designed to lead to superior, non-correlated returns for its limited partners. MCP was founded in 2012 by Franklin McLarty and Christopher Smith to support the robust capital needs of small businesses, a traditionally underserved portion of the economy. Firmament provides tailored debt and equity capital solutions directly to SMEs in the form of unitranche senior debt, junior debt, structured equity and common equity.
The new name reflects the firm's evolution from an extension of the McLarty family office to a global investment platform focused on turning small business into big business.
McLarty Capital Partners, a private capital provider to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has rebranded as The Firmament Group (Firmament).
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