Armory Group, a financial advisory firm serving the middle market, hired Nicole Nugent as a managing director. Based in Los Angeles, Nugent has more than 20 years of experience advising middle-market companies on a range of transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, private and public equity and debt offerings, restructurings and valuations, with a focus on the consumer and retail industries.

Prior to joining Armory, Nugent served as CFO for Wings&Arrow, a beverage producer specializing in hard seltzers, hard lemondaes and canned cocktails. Before joining Wings&Arrow, Nugent was a managing director in the food, beverage and agribusiness group at Cascadia Capital and before that was the co-head of investment banking at First Beverage Group, where she advised brands across the alcohol and non-alcohol segments. Before joining First Beverage, Nugent was a managing director in the consumer investment banking group at Imperial Capital, where she executed restructuring, leveraged finance, and merger and acquisition engagements. Nugent began her banking career at Citigroup and also spent time at Bear Stearns and Banc of America Securities.

“I am thrilled to be joining the Armory platform at this dynamic time in the market. I have admired what the Armory team has been building in terms of both product and industry expertise and look forward to working with the entire team to continue building out their growing consumer practice,” Nugent said.

“We are pleased to welcome Nicole to the Armory team. Her depth of experience in advising middle-market companies on mergers & acquisitions, growth equity and minority equity capital raises, debt offerings, restructurings and valuations will be of great value to our clients” Eben Perison, co-founder of Armory Group, said. “Nicole’s addition is an exciting opportunity to expand Armory’s West Coast practice and add to our national presence while also expanding our consumer sector expertise.”