Beau Thomas said he received the phone call last year from his longtime friend and former colleague, Jeff Aiello. The message: He was ready to start a private equity firm.
Thomas and Aiello shared a long-standing interest in pursuing their entrepreneurial bent. They had met more than a decade ago at Audax Private Equity in Boston, where they collaborated on deals.
When Aiello was in business school from 2014 to 2016, they’d talk “pie in the sky” about starting a private equity firm together, Aiello said. They gradually got more serious and "very serious” in mid-to-late 2023. Thomas told Aiello he was all in.
“The reality is that Jeff is the only person I would want to go do something like this,” Thomas said.
The result is a new private equity firm in St. Louis, with Aiello leaving Clayton-based Thompson Street Capital Partners in November 2023 and Thomas departing Audax after nearly 15 years. They are co-founders and managing partners of Agellus Capital, which has six employees and a seventh set to start in mid-September. The plan is to have more than 10 in a year to 18 months.
Launched on March 4, Agellus recently announced the final close of its inaugural fund, with total limited partner capital commitments of $400 million, securing them in less than five months and exceeding its $350 million target.
The game plan is to deploy the capital within five years, and ideally within three to four years.
The origin story of Agellus – Latin for “little field, small plot of land, small estate” – is grounded in a long-term friendship between two private equity executives who have fulfilled their goal of starting a firm from the ground up.
Aiello is originally from Brooklyn, New York. Both of his parents were New York Police Department officers.
“I was never exposed to that idea of starting your own business,” he said.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in aeronautical engineering at the U.S. Air Force Academy in 2006. In the Air Force, he moved up from second lieutenant to captain over five years, serving a big chunk of that time as a research and development engineer.
It was during a layover at Chicago O’Hare International Airport after one of Aiello’s first defense contractor meetings that he met an investment banker. The guy told Aiello about his job.
“I thought, this sounds really interesting,” said Aiello. “It’s more about building relationships and being an adviser and understanding broader market dynamics, not just trading.”
Aiello said he reached out to veteran friends who were in banking. One advised him that private equity is “where the real fun is – but you’ll never get in” because Aiello had not pursued a path of landing a job at Goldman Sachs after undergrad and then working at a private equity firm.
Unfazed, Aiello got a job at Audax Private Equity in Boston where he met Thomas.
Thomas grew up in New Orleans and attended Princeton University. During the summer of 2008, he was an intern in Boston at The Parthenon Group LLC, a consulting firm.
“It was fantastic because you got to work on all of these great strategic problems for companies and nonprofits and others... The frustration was at the end of the project, that was really it. You handed off recommendations and then you went off to the next thing,” he said.
Thomas learned that several people moved into private equity after doing consulting and investment banking. That’s how he became interested in the sector.
“You actually develop those recommendations, but then you own the result. You work with the management team. You work on the transaction. You find the deal. You develop skillsets with incredible, accomplished executives, entrepreneurs and founders,” he said.
After earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics in 2009 from Princeton, Thomas landed a job at Audax Private Equity and moved to Boston. Two years later, Aiello joined the firm.
“Jeff and I worked closely together on a bunch of deals between 2011 and 2014. He lived in Boston during that time with his family, then went off to Wharton. I was bummed because one of my great friends didn’t end up coming back,” Thomas said.
Between his first and second years at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Aiello sourced and closed an independent sponsor deal, the acquisition of a commercial landscaping and maintenance business. An independent sponsor raises capital for a single deal instead of a fund with multiple deals.
As the transaction closed, Aiello also received an offer to work at Clayton-based Thompson Street.
“I had a big decision to make. Do I keep doing independent sponsor deals and be my own boss or do I go work for another (general partner)? The summary answer is, I fell in love with St. Louis. I liked being in the Midwest. I wanted to raise my family here. And I really liked the people that I worked with at Thompson Street during my internship,” said Aiello. He and his wife have two children.
Aiello moved in 2016 to St. Louis and worked for Thompson Street for nearly eight years.
“I loved my time at Thompson Street. It's a great firm with great people. I just had a growing desire to be an entrepreneur and to build something from the ground up,” he said.
Aiello left Thompson Street in November last year. Thomas started having conversations with his colleagues at Audax early this year around his plans. His last day there was at the end of February
Agellus Capital launched on March 4, with Aiello and Thomas in Minneapolis meeting with deal sources and potential limited partners. Thomas continues to live in Boston with his wife and their three young children, but he is in St. Louis often and the firm’s sole office is in Clayton at 7701 Forsyth Blvd., the Pierre Laclede Center.
Thomas said the firm originally thought $350 million was the target for the Agellus Capital Private Equity Fund I, but upped it to $400 million as investment commitments were secured in less than five months. Aviditi Advisors served as the exclusive placement agent, and law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges was the counsel.
Agellus’ investor base includes endowments and foundations, global financial institutions, insurance companies, family offices, sovereign wealth funds and several founders, executives, and other professionals.
The firm plans to focus on business-to-business services such as blue-collar technician-oriented companies, “non-discretionary consumer” firms – such as plumbers and roofing companies – and the supply chain and infrastructure services markets. Agellus is targeting initial platform investments of $2 million to $20 million of EBITDA – earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
Acquiring majority ownership will be the firm’s predominant strategy, but Agellus is flexible about structure including a minority equity position with joint control of a company, Thomas said. Agellus expects to close one deal by the end of the year, if not more, he added.
