We Predict Policy, Quantify Impact, and Create Strategy
The defense and national security landscape is more consequential—and more complex—than at any point in a generation. Shifting budget priorities, new acquisition paradigms, the commercialization of dual-use technology, and an increasingly contested geopolitical environment create both risk and opportunity for investors and their portfolio companies at every stage of the transaction lifecycle.
Private equity and the broader investor community rely on Capstone’s aerospace and defense expertise to gain differentiated insight into the risks and opportunities that determine investment outcomes. Our process is designed to uncover innovative policy-driven ideas, advising institutional investors and corporations on the impact of regulation on potential and existing investments. We translate the opaque workings of the Pentagon, Capitol Hill, and the broader national security community, plus careful market analysis, into bespoke diligence and perspectives tailored for each specific investment opportunity or strategy development process.
Select Aerospace & Defense Transactions
Capstone has been a trusted adviser on many public transactions. Below is a selection of recent transactions.
Capstone’s Approach to Due Diligence for Aerospace & Defense
Capstone’s policy, regulatory and market diligence offering for the A&D sector assesses the full commercial picture: the durability of programs of record, competitive positioning within the defense industrial base, and the forward-looking spending environment across DoD mission areas. Our work is designed to validate—or challenge—your investment thesis with the rigor and specificity that an Investment Committee demands.
The defense market is also shaped as much by policy as by commercial forces. Budget cycles, statutory mandates, acquisition reform, and geopolitical developments all create material risks and opportunities that traditional financial due diligence can miss. Capstone’s policy and regulatory diligence is built to answer the questions that matter most.
Aerospace & Defense Capabilities
- Federal and State Policy Analysis
- Reimbursement and Pricing
- Market Sizing and Share
- Competitive Positioning and VoC
Federal and State Policy Analysis
Leverage institutional knowledge and conversations with Capstone’s proprietary network to provide forward-looking, probability-weighted scenario analyses of federal and state legislation and regulation.
Build impact analysis by tying existing policy and forward-looking scenarios to company/market economics, structure, and strategy.
Reimbursement and Pricing
Leverage open-source, proprietary, and vended datasets, payor/PBM/competitor interviews, and supply chain surveys to provide historical reimbursement trends, comparative reimbursement benchmarks, and go-forward projections among all major payors and providers (including site-of-care analysis).
Markets analyzed: Medicare FFS, Medicare Advantage (MA), Commercial Medical, Medicaid FFS, Managed Medicaid, Commercial Pharmacy, Medicare Part D
Market Sizing and Share
Leverage open-source, proprietary, and vended datasets to build granular,
high-fidelity bottom-up market sizing and market share model. Supplement
bottom-up build with expert interviews and surveys to develop top-down
validation and perform sensitivity analysis.
Competitive Positioning and VoC
Leverage institutional knowledge, datasets, interviews, and surveys to understand where an asset sits in the market, how it competes, how it performs relative to competitors, and how its customers view it.
Capstone’s Aerospace & Defense Edge: Real-time insights, investment-driven analysis, and deal team partnership yields tailored, concise, and actionable products
What Separates Capstone Aerospace & Defense from the Competition
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Proprietary Network
Capstone leverages a proprietary and purpose-built network of experts and other professionals involved in policy formation, influence, and analysis, including current and former policymakers, trade associations, lobbyists, government affairs staff, think tanks, and other policy thought leaders.
Real-Time 360 Policy/Regulatory Channel Checks
Instead of relying exclusively on former policymakers, institutional knowledge, and prior engagement work, Capstone provides real-time insights and channel checks. Capstone is non-partisan and agnostic to policy outcomes (i.e., we do not advocate/lobby), which keeps lines of communication open and honest.
2
Diverse Client Set
Capstone works across both the capital structure and the investment lifecycle. Our diversified client set includes private equity, growth equity, and venture capital firms; private credit and direct lending firms; long-only, long/short, multi-manager, and distressed/opportunistic credit hedge funds; and portfolio companies and corporates.
Investment-Driven Approach and Analysis
Capstone evaluates all policy and regulatory risks through a financial and operational lens, making our products better suited to assess how policy and regulatory changes impact a company’s business model and economics. Our products also clearly identify potential risks, weighed by probability and impact.
3
Obsessive Focus on Quality Service and Quality Product
Partners in the Process
One dedicated team will work with you from scope writing to the final delivery, ensuring alignment and avoiding drawn-out processes and less succinct products. Our involvement in the scoping process ensures that no questions are left unanswered and directs resources toward policy areas that may be less obvious but more impactful. As part of our process, Capstone also brainstorms with clients to develop risk mitigation strategies, if applicable.
4
Access to Capstone Events
Capstone’s private markets clients have access to client-only events with industry leaders. Recent guest speakers include the current Chief of Space Operations at the US Space Force, the Special Coordinator for the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Resilience, among others.
Selected Issues
Case Studies
Capstone has a proven track record of providing in-depth analysis across a wide range of policy and regulatory issues. Our case studies demonstrate our healthcare team’s ability to help clients navigate complex policy challenges and develop targeted revenue-driving strategies.
Our Latest Aerospace & Defense Insights
Why Iran Will Retain Control of the Strait While Negotiations Continue Indefinitely
Iran’s attack on a Singapore-flagged cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz on June 25th followed by an exchange of fire by the US and Iran over the weekend and subsequent ceasefire announcement, is part of a cycle that directly challenges the premise underlying the...
Navy Investment to Expand the Maritime Industrial Base
The US shipbuilding industry is poised to grow significantly in the next five years as the Department of the Navy receives funding to build new vessels and for maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO). These investments will increase demand for an expanded maritime...
New Threats Drive European Drone and Counter-Drone Demand
Capstone believes that the European drone and counter-drone space is poised to expand significantly, given EU Member States’ collective interest in developing sovereign European industrial capabilities. Battlefield activity in Ukraine and drone overflights of European...
The Industrial Surge: How Defense Dollars Will Strengthen American Supply Chains
On April 23, the Defense Department and L3 Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) announced that they closed a $1 billion deal for the Department of Defense (DOD) investment in the company’s Missile Solutions business. The “strategic investment,” according to L3, will be...









































