Excel Capital Advisors served as exclusive financial advisor to Classic Brass in its sale to ASSA ABLOY Americas Residential Custom Hardware & Finishes Inc.
TAMPA, Fla. — July, 2026 — Excel Capital Advisors (“ECA”), an independent M&A advisory firm serving founder-led and family-owned businesses in the lower middle market, today announced that Classic Brass (“Classic Brass” or the “Company”), a Jamestown, New York-based manufacturer of handcrafted solid brass decorative and architectural hardware, has been acquired by ASSA ABLOY Americas Residential Custom Hardware & Finishes Inc., a subsidiary of ASSA ABLOY AB (STO: ASSA-B), the global leader in access solutions. Excel Capital Advisors served as exclusive financial advisor to Classic Brass in the transaction. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Founded in 1996 by Chris Creighton, Classic Brass designs and manufactures premium solid brass cabinet and door hardware for the luxury residential, hospitality, and restoration markets, including knobs, pulls, levers, hinges, cremone bolts, and specialty accents. Every piece is machined to specification and finished to order at the Company’s Chautauqua County workshop, supported by a proprietary library of hand-applied finishes and a curated network of high-end decorative hardware dealers across North America and internationally.
The acquisition expands ASSA ABLOY’s custom residential hardware and finishing capabilities in the Americas and adds domestic, made-to-order brass manufacturing to its premium residential platform.
“Classic Brass is exactly the kind of business we are built to represent — a genuine American manufacturer with a defensible craft, three decades of brand equity with the design trade, and an owner who cared as much about where the Company was going as what it was worth,” said Michael Devine, President of Excel Capital Advisors. “Our job was to make sure the market understood all three.”
“We ran a focused process aimed at a narrow set of acquirers who could actually underwrite a custom, finish-to-order manufacturer rather than treat it as a volume business,” said Keith Monahan, Managing Director at Excel Capital Advisors. “ASSA ABLOY understood the model immediately, and that shared view is what carried the transaction through diligence and to a close.”
“Transactions like this one are won in the details — the diligence, the working capital, the structuring, the hundred items between signing and closing,” said Paul Klein, Director at Excel Capital Advisors. “Chris built something genuinely rare, and our responsibility was to make sure nothing in the process eroded what he had spent thirty years creating. Getting him to a partner who will invest in Jamestown and the people there is the outcome we set out to deliver.”
Excel Capital Advisors served as exclusive financial advisor to Classic Brass.
About Excel Capital Advisors
Excel Capital Advisors is an independent boutique M&A advisory firm focused on the lower middle market. The firm advises founder-led and family-owned businesses on sell-side M&A and growth capital raises, typically in the $10 million to $200 million enterprise value range, combining institutional investment banking execution with the senior-level attention these owners deserve. For more information, visit excelcapitaladvisors.com.
About Classic Brass
Classic Brass is a family-owned manufacturer of fine decorative and architectural hardware based in Jamestown, New York. Founded in 1996 by Chris Creighton, the Company handcrafts solid brass cabinet and door hardware — machined to specification and finished to order by skilled craftsmen — for luxury residential, hospitality, and restoration projects. Classic Brass products are sold through a selective network of premium decorative hardware dealers and showrooms. For more information, visit classicbrass.com.
About ASSA ABLOY
ASSA ABLOY is the global leader in access solutions, with operations in over 70 countries and a portfolio of residential and commercial brands spanning mechanical and digital locks, cylinders, security doors, and automated entrances. The Group has completed nearly 400 acquisitions since its formation in 1994. For more information, visit assaabloy.com or view the Group’s acquisition strategy.
Media Contact
Michael Devine | Excel Capital Advisors
(941) 400-2207 | mdevine@excelcapitaladvisors.com
SOURCE: Excel Capital Advisors
