--- title: "Blackstone targets liquid cooling with FCH; FFL scoops up office of the CFO biz Waylin Partners" url: https://burnaze.com/article/4b3d3ed2-9267-41f2-9972-8b95f89ee13d source: "PE Hub" original_url: https://www.pehub.com/blackstone-targets-liquid-cooling-with-fch-ffl-scoops-up-office-of-the-cfo-biz-waylin-partners/ author: "Michael Schoeck" category: "Finance" topics: ["Finance & M&A","People"] published: 2026-09-10T13:56:01.000Z modified: 2026-10-31T12:09:03.087Z image: https://media.pehub.com/uploads/2026/09/data-center-server-racks-GettyImages-2220588451.jpg --- # Blackstone targets liquid cooling with FCH; FFL scoops up office of the CFO biz Waylin Partners **TL;DR:** Blackstone has agreed to acquire Flow Control Holdings (FCH), a provider of highly engineered flow control services and components. FFL Partners has completed an investment in Waylin Partners, a provider of services focused on the office of the chief financial officer of private equity-backed companies. *By Michael Schoeck, originally published in PE Hub on 2026-09-10. [Read the original](https://www.pehub.com/blackstone-targets-liquid-cooling-with-fch-ffl-scoops-up-office-of-the-cfo-biz-waylin-partners/).* ## Key facts - Blackstone acquires FCH - FCH serves data center market - FFL invests in Waylin Partners ## Story Blackstone has agreed to acquire Flow Control Holdings (FCH), a Cincinnati-based provider of highly engineered flow control services and components serving the data center liquid cooling, food, beverage, and pharmaceutical markets. Blackstone is acquiring the majority stake of FCH from Audax Private Equity, which will retain a minority equity stake in the company. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter. The market for data center liquid cooling is growing as many providers move away from traditional air-cooling systems, Bilal Khan, a senior managing director at Blackstone, told PE Hub. ## Liquid cooling growth > "Data centers are becoming more energy efficient through the use of liquid cooling architecture," Khan said. "From a product standpoint, Flow Control provides the fundamental building blocks for the design of a liquid cooling system. As the newest generation of chips becomes increasingly more power-dense, we believe the data center market will shift towards liquid cooling solutions." FCH’s components are used by original equipment manufacturers and hyperscalers for coolant distribution units, in-row manifolds, and secondary fluid networks. > "At Blackstone, our investment philosophy is to identify multiple ways to invest behind a mega-trend – and AI/digitalization is one of our highest conviction thematics," Khan said. "The more entrenched that we get into the AI ecosystem, we are identifying new and exciting investments and, most importantly, we are able to bring the scale of the entire Blackstone platform to the benefit of our individual investments." FCH represents the firm’s second investment in the liquid cooling sector this year. Earlier this year, Blackstone’s energy transition fund group, Blackstone Energy Transition Partners, acquired a majority stake in Advanced Cooling Technologies, a manufacturer of thermal management and energy efficiency products. In July, Blackstone Energy Transition Partners also acquired DarkVision Technologies from Koch Engineered Solutions, a unit of Koch. Based in North Vancouver, British Columbia, DarkVision uses imaging sensors and silicon chips paired with AI models and rendering software to inspect critical industrial infrastructure, such as gas pipelines. ## Office services investment In another transaction, FFL Partners has completed an investment in Waylin Partners, a Chicago-based provider of services focused on the office of the chief financial officer (OCFO) of private equity-backed companies. As private equity holding periods lengthen, demand for specialized OCFO services continues to rise. > "Private equity firms are holding onto businesses for longer," Jonathon Bunt, a partner at FFL, told PE Hub. "As interest rates have run up, the returns that private equity firms need to achieve need to come from different areas, which has caused the focus on value creation to increase significantly." Bunt noted that the OCFO serves as the primary window through which many firms evaluate portfolio performance. > "As a private equity investor, you really need to understand how the business is performing, and you need to have the portfolio company’s OCFO functioning at a really high level in order to effectively do that," Bunt said. "Typically, portfolio companies do not have the necessary OCFO talent in house to achieve everything the private equity sponsor wants, so they need outside expertise and execution, and Waylin can help with that." Waylin’s approach relies on "forward-deployed finance engineers" who embed directly with client companies to solve operational and technical issues. Bunt pointed out that middle-market companies often struggle to hire permanent talent possessing the requisite blend of financial planning and analysis, technical accounting, and data engineering expertise. The investment from San Francisco-based FFL will be used to accelerate Waylin’s growth through expanded recruitment, developing relationships with PE sponsors, and advancing the firm's AI-enabled offerings. As the fourth quarter approaches, the pipeline of companies being readied for sale appears robust. Year to date, PE Hub has tracked 205 companies coming to market, compared with 94 at the same time last year. The sectors demonstrating the highest activity levels include business services, healthcare, fintech, industrials, aerospace and defense, and companies supporting the broader AI infrastructure buildout. - Health-tech firm Outcomes One was sold by GTCR and BlackRock to HIG Capital. - Family-owned healthcare laundry services firm Unitex was sold to CVC Capital, following market reports tracking the asset at a $70 million EBITDA valuation. - A1 Garage Door is reportedly in active discussions to be acquired by KKR at a valuation of approximately $2 billion. ## Entities - private equity (topic) - Finance (sector) - PE Hub (publication) - Blackstone (investor) - Michael Schoeck (person) - office services (topic) - Audax Private Equity (investor) - FFL Partners (investor) - data center (topic) - Waylin Partners (company) - FFL Partners investment in Waylin Partners (deal) - Flow Control Holdings (FCH) (company) --- Originally reported by Michael Schoeck, PE Hub (https://www.pehub.com/blackstone-targets-liquid-cooling-with-fch-ffl-scoops-up-office-of-the-cfo-biz-waylin-partners/). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/4b3d3ed2-9267-41f2-9972-8b95f89ee13d).