Geopolitical competition and a renewed focus on undersea priorities are fueling this once-in-a-generation investment transformation

CLEVELAND, Aug. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The United States is entering a multi-decade maritime industrial super cycle in which enduring strategic advantage will be determined not only by the sophistication of individual naval platforms, but by the nation’s ability to rapidly build, sustain, repair, regenerate, and scale maritime capability through a resilient, technologically advanced industrial base, according to an industry report released by the Aerospace, Defense & Government Services (ADGS) investment banking team at Brown Gibbons Lang & Company (BGL).

Download and read the BGL Industrials Insider here: https://bit.ly/BGLMaritimeInsider 

BGL Managing Director Meghan Welch: “The companies best positioned to create value will be those that combine differentiated technology or scarce qualifications with the operational ability to industrialize. In the next maritime cycle, innovation will matter, but industrialization will determine who wins.”

BGL Managing Director Craig Decker: “As institutional capital looks for new deployment opportunities, shipyards are emerging as an increasingly compelling area for infrastructure and private equity investment. Regulatory enforcement, evolving policy priorities, and the limited supply of maritime infrastructure and skilled labor are creating attractive market dynamics and drawing investor interest to a sector that has historically received limited institutional investment.”

In the report, BGL examines the emerging opportunities for private equity and infrastructure investors in the maritime defense sector and the recent deal activity and capital strategies that are shaping the market.

Key defense industry trends and takeaways include:

Why federal policy and trade are becoming a durable demand signal for investmentHow fleet readiness is creating recurring demand for the aftermarketWhy consolidation is accelerating across the naval defense sector

Private equity, infrastructure capital and venture investment are entering the maritime market through different channels. Private equity is consolidating fragmented suppliers and repair capabilities. Infrastructure investors are attracted to long-duration assets such as shipyards, dry docks and port facilities that require patient capital. Venture investors are funding autonomous systems, sensing, advanced manufacturing and maritime software.

The investment case is supported by durable government demand, large prime-contractor backlogs, strategic scarcity and bipartisan recognition that capacity must expand. It is also supported by market fragmentation. A single ship class can depend on thousands of suppliers, while repair markets are often divided among regional yards and specialized trades. This creates room for scaled platforms that improve coordination, broaden capabilities, and invest in modern systems.

About BGL’s Aerospace, Defense & Government Services Investment Banking Team

BGL’s Aerospace, Defense & Government Services (ADGS) investment banking team has decades of relevant experience and a network of long-standing relationships across a broad range of subsectors, including aerospace technology, aviation services & distribution, defense, space, government technology & services, and logistics.

About Brown Gibbons Lang & Company
Brown Gibbons Lang & Company (BGL) is a leading independent investment bank and financial advisory firm focused on the global middle market. The firm advises private and public corporations and private equity groups on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, financial restructurings, business valuations and opinions, and other strategic matters. BGL has offices in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and New York. The firm is also a founding member of REACH Cross-Border Mergers & Acquisitions, enabling BGL to service clients in 30 countries around the world. Securities transactions are conducted through Brown, Gibbons, Lang & Company Securities, LLC, an affiliate of Brown Gibbons Lang & Company LLC and a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. For more information, please visit www.bglco.com.

Industry contacts:

Meghan M. Welch
Managing Director
Aerospace, Defense & Government Services
mwelch@bglco.com
859.487.0006

Craig M. Decker
Managing Director
Transportation & Logistics Infrastructure
cdecker@bglco.com
917.688.2784

Enrico J. Certo
Director
Transportation & Logistics Infrastructure
ecerto@bglco.com
917.373.0527

Media contact:

Kaylyn R. Hlavaty
Communications Manager
khlavaty@bglco.com
440.823.0270

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/private-capital-is-returning-to-the-maritime-industrial-base-302862146.html

SOURCE Brown Gibbons Lang & Company

New site and app are driving stronger shopper engagement and conversion even as industry unit sales remain essentially flat year over year

MIAMI, Aug. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — YachtWorld, the world’s largest online marketplace for yachts and boats, is outperforming broader recreational boating market trends following the launch of its new site, with buyers engaging more deeply and converting into leads at significantly higher rates than they did a year ago.

While early data from Boats Group’s sold boats database shows August unit sales essentially flat to slightly down year over year, buyer performance on YachtWorld is moving in a markedly different direction. Lead conversion has increased 25.4%, boat detail page engagement has increased 25.5%, and search click-through rate has improved 9.6% compared with the same period last year.

The results point to a more productive marketplace: even as the overall number of boats changing hands remains relatively steady or slightly down, YachtWorld is doing a better job of turning available buyer demand into meaningful engagement and connections with professional sellers.

“When the overall market is flat, growth in buyer engagement becomes even more meaningful,” said Mike Grabowski, Chief Product Officer of Boats Group. “We can’t control the broader market, but we can build the best possible shopping experience — one that helps buyers discover the right boats, keeps them engaged and makes it easier to connect with sellers. That’s what we’re seeing with the new YachtWorld site and app.”

Boats Group’s latest market data reflects a recreational boating market that remains relatively stable year over year. Against that backdrop, YachtWorld is seeing substantial improvement across three of the behaviors that matter most to buyers and sellers: discovery, engagement and conversion.

Rather than relying on growth in the broader market, the new YachtWorld experience is helping turn existing buyer demand into more productive shopping activity and more opportunities for sellers.

The new YachtWorld was designed around how people actually shop for boats, creating a simpler path from discovery and search to individual boat exploration and seller contact. Early results show shoppers are more likely to move from search results into individual listings, explore more boats during their visit and ultimately connect with a seller.

That distinction is particularly important for YachtWorld’s professional brokers and dealers in a flat market. When the overall pool of demand isn’t growing, making the most of every active buyer becomes increasingly important.

“More traffic isn’t necessarily the measure of a better marketplace,” said Grabowski. “Our focus is on creating meaningful buyer activity. Are shoppers finding boats that interest them? Are they exploring more inventory? Are they connecting with sellers? We’re seeing significant improvement across each of those behaviors.”

The new YachtWorld site and app are part of Boats Group’s broader investment in modernizing the boat-buying journey across its marketplaces. By combining marketplace technology, data and insights into buyer behavior, Boats Group is focused on helping consumers move more easily from discovery to ownership while creating greater value for the dealers, brokers and manufacturers that serve them.

“Market conditions will always change,” added Grabowski. “Our job is to keep improving what we can control: the experience we create for buyers and our ability to connect that demand with our customers’ inventory.”

About YachtWorld

YachtWorld is the largest online marketplace for buying and selling yachts, connecting millions of buyers with a global network of brokers, dealers, and private sellers. With AI-driven search tools, real-time market insights, and comprehensive financing options, YachtWorld makes yacht discovery and ownership more accessible, seamless, and enjoyable.

Media Contact:
Courtney Chalmers
Chief Brand & Communications Officer
press@boats.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yachtworld-outperforms-a-flat-market-as-new-site-drives-25-increase-in-buyer-engagement-and-lead-conversion-302862158.html

SOURCE YachtWorld

Expanded capabilities advance trusted product data across the product lifecycle as transparency and regulatory requirements increase

CAMPBELL, Calif., Aug. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Centric Software® today announced expanded sustainability, compliance and product governance capabilities across Centric PLM™, extending trusted product data and processes across product development and commercialization. The enhancements reinforce Centric PLM as the trusted product data foundation for increasingly complex product and regulatory requirements. Centric Software delivers innovative, integrated, AI-powered enterprise solutions that drive product development from concept to commercialization for brands, retailers and manufacturers across fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home, cosmetics & personal care and multi-category retail.

As expectations for product transparency increase, trusted product data is becoming a business imperative. Organizations need accurate, trusted and connected information across products, materials, suppliers and packaging to make informed decisions, accelerate product development and respond to evolving requirements, from Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) to broader initiatives under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), including forthcoming Digital Product Passports.

For many organizations, the challenge is not creating more sustainability information but transforming fragmented product, material, supplier and packaging data into trusted product records that improve compliance and decision-making. Rather than relying on point solutions for individual compliance requirements, Centric PLM embeds sustainability, compliance and traceability directly into product and packaging development, creating a single, trusted source where product information is captured once and reused as regulatory requirements evolve.

“Sustainability is a journey and greater visibility into materials and product data enables us to turn our goals into action,” said Sandy Flint, Senior Materials Manager, STIO. “With Centric PLM, we can integrate these priorities into the way we develop products and track key information such as materials, environmental impact and compliance. Having that information in one place gives us the visibility to make more informed decisions throughout product development.”

The latest Centric PLM enhancements enable brands, retailers and manufacturers to:

Improve sustainability reporting with Sustainability Profiles and automated composition roll-ups for more accurate labeling and reporting.Strengthen compliance governance with centralized Certificate Management, supplier certifications and expiry tracking.Design for circularity earlier with recyclability and circularity insights embedded in product development.Improve supplier collaboration and visibility by collecting and governing sustainability and compliance information in Centric PLM.

“Product transparency is reshaping how products are created and the brands that succeed will be those that make trusted product data the foundation for innovation, sustainability and compliance,” said Fabrice Canonge, CEO of Centric Software. “Centric PLM delivers a connected foundation of trusted product data that enables better decisions, stronger collaboration and greater agility as regulatory and market expectations evolve.”

Learn more about Centric solutions. 

REQUEST A DEMO

Centric Software® (www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides an innovative and AI-enabled product concept-to-commercialization platform for retailers, brands and manufacturers of all sizes. As experts in fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home, cosmetics & personal care as well as multi-category retail, Centric Software delivers best-of-breed solutions to plan, design, develop, source, comply, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products.

Centric PLM™, the leading PLM solution for fashion, outdoor, footwear and private label, optimizes product execution from ideation to development, sourcing and manufacture, realizing up to 50% improvement in productivity and a 60% decrease in time to market.Centric Planning & Pricing™, a cloud-native solution powered by Centric AI that unifies planning, pricing and inventory optimization, enabling retailers and brands to increase sell-through, improve margins and optimize inventory efficiency from pre-season through in-season execution.Centric Market Intelligence™ is an AI-driven platform delivering insights into consumer trends, competitor offers and pricing to boost competitively and get closer to the consumer, driving up to a 12% increase in average initial price point.Centric Visual Boards™ pivot actionable data in a visual-first orientation to ensure robust, consumer-right assortments and product offers, dramatically decreasing assortment development cycle time.Centric PXM™, AI-powered product experience management (PXM) encompasses PIM, DAM, content syndication and digital shelf analytics (DSA) to optimize the product commercialization lifecycle resulting in a transformed brand experience. Increase sales channels, boost sell through and drive margins.

Centric Software’s market-driven solutions have the highest user adoption rate, customer satisfaction rate and fastest time to value in the industry. Centric Software has received multiple industry awards and recognition, appearing regularly in world-leading analyst reports and research.

Centric Software is a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes (Euronext Paris: FR0014003TT8, DSY.PA), the world leader in 3D design software, 3D digital mock-up and PLM solutions. 

Centric Software is a registered trademark of Centric Software, Inc. in the US and other countries. Centric PLM, Centric Planning & Pricing, Centric Market Intelligence, Centric Visual Boards, Centric PXM, Centric PIM, Centric DAM, Centric Shoppingfeed® and Centric DSA (including Centric Digital Shelf Analytics) are trademarks of Centric Software, Inc. All third-party trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/centric-software-strengthens-centric-plm-as-a-trusted-product-data-foundation-for-transparency-and-compliance-302862071.html

SOURCE Centric Software