Nidec Minster Corporation, a leader in press and material handling equipment, has divested its grey and ductile iron foundry to The C.A. Lawton Co., a portfolio company of Oakland Standard. The transaction closed on June 30, 2020.
The Nidec Minster foundry is a modern full-service grey and ductile iron foundry that produces and supplies castings to Nidec Minster and external customers. Nidec Minster Corporation has operated its own foundry and pattern shop for much of the Company’s history. The current foundry was placed in operation in 1973, designed to produce relatively short-run quantities of machine tool quality castings using no-bake cores and molds. At the time of start-up it was the only completely no-bake facility in the world.
Nidec Minster Corporation Executive Officer, David Winch says, “Since our founding in 1896, our ability to locally source high quality parts has been extremely important to both our internal product as well as the external customers we serve. Over that same period, the metal forming industry and especially the foundry business has adapted to many changes. We believe that in today’s market, domestic production of these products and quality standards is best accomplished as a team – increasing available resources to serve customer needs as well as supply chain availability. We are very happy to have found this operational partner in The C.A. Lawton Company.” The foundry will operate under Oakland Standard’s Specialty Metals platform as a second location of the C.A. Lawton Co.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Balmoral Advisors served as sellside M&A advisor to Nidec Minster Corporation.
About Nidec Minster Corporation
Nidec Minster Corporation a subsidiary of Nidec-Shimpo Corporation, which is part of the worldwide Nidec Corporation, headquartered in Kyoto, Japan, is a world-class supplier of equipment and services for the material forming industry providing single source total solutions for manufacturing equipment and services. The company began as a blacksmith shop in 1896 and has since grown to be the world’s premier manufacturer of precise, productive and dependable equipment. Today, Nidec Minster presses and material handling equipment are in production in more than 87 countries around the world.
About The C.A. Lawton Co.
The C.A. Lawton Co. was founded in De Pere, Wisconsin in 1879 and has been serving customers for five generations. C.A. Lawton is an industry leading manufacturer of gray-and ductile-iron castings serving the HVAC, mining, water, and paper industries, among others. Lawton’s De Pere facility produces castings ranging in size from 400 to 20,000 pounds and provides an end-to-end casting solution, from design and engineering through finishing and machining.
About Oakland Standard
Oakland Standard is a Michigan-based private equity firm investing in lower middle market industrial businesses. The firm specializes in lower middle market recapitalizations, industry consolidations, corporate carveouts and non-core operations and family-owned businesses.
