Meet The Former Banker Who Is Now A Private Defense Billionaire |
On a Saturday in June, hundreds of protesters marched to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Portland, Oregon and gathered outside the center. Then federal agents outfitted in tactical gear fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. Four months later, in late October, a similar scene played out in Alameda, California, with agents firing stun grenades at a crowd of people protesting against the arrival of border patrol agents in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Both confrontations made national news for the use of force and continuing questions of federal overreach orchestrated by President Donald Trump. Incidents like these are happening more often as tensions rise throughout the country. Whether at protests and riots—or in military conflicts and when responding to active shooters—local, state, federal and international governments are all boosting their spending on body armor and “crowd control” products to equip their forces.
Not surprisingly, the private sector is stepping up to the task. One such company is Jacksonville, Florida-based Cadre Holdings, which supplied the tear gas used in Portland in June and the stun grenades used in Alameda in October. Its tear gas has also been used against civilians in places from Mexico to Palestine. Its body armor, meanwhile, is worn by thousands of police, military and federal agents ranging from the Danish army to the West Virginia National Guard.
The person behind all this is Warren Kanders, a former Morgan Stanley banker who has spent decades building up an arsenal of defense businesses selling everything from protective bomb suits and body armor to holsters and crowd control products including rubber bullets. He first started investing in the sector in 1996 and took Cadre public in 2021. He’s since orchestrated at least half a dozen acquisitions including four since the start of 2024.
“Protection today extends beyond armor and suits,” Kanders, 68, said at the firm’s investor day in October. “It is about fortifying defense systems, safeguarding energy and securing the backbone of critical infrastructure.”
So while the products used on the frontlines get most of the press, Cadre is moving quickly into other forms of protection. In March 2024, it picked up radiation protection products maker Alpha Safety for $107 million. In April, it spent $90 million on Carr’s Engineering, which makes robots, containers for spent fuel, and other goods for nuclear waste management as well as nuclear medicine and energy.
That nuclear safety business is now its fastest growing, accounting for an estimated 17% of Cadre’s revenue, according to White Plains-based research firm CJS Securities. It’s also a big reason why its stock is up by nearly 30% this year, as investors piled into nuclear stocks. The stock jump has vaulted Kanders, who owns 28% of Cadre, into the........