Two forging manufacturers have been combined with a large automotive foundry organization as a single holding company, to maximize the operations’ metal-forming expertise and cross-selling opportunities in the automotive sector. The Metaldyne Performance Group (MPG) was assembled last summer by private-equity group American Securities LLC, and an initial public offering (IPO) of 10 million shares was launched in December 2014 at $15.00/share.
American Securities, the majority shareholder, has over $10 billion under management in different industrial sectors, including manufacturing, health care, power/energy, services, and consumer markets.
“The transformative merger is designed to enable … three established automotive suppliers to strengthen their market position across metal forming technologies, expand their global footprints and leverage certain cross-selling opportunities that exist between the companies while benefitting from operational synergies,” according to a statement at that time.
The two forging groups are HHI Holdings LLC and Metaldyne. The metalcasting company is Grede Holdings LLC. The combined organization reportedly has 61 plants operating in 13 countries.
HHI is a collection of forging operations assembled in the past decade, including Cloyes Gear, FormTech, Jernberg, and Impact Forge. As a group, it supplies products like transmission parts, drivetrain components, wheel hubs, axle ring and pinion gears, sprockets, balance shaft gears, timing drive systems, and more, mainly to North American light vehicle OEMs and Tier I suppliers.
Metaldyne also forges automotive products, mainly for global light vehicle markets. Its products include powder metal connecting rods, VVT components, balance shaft systems, engine crankshaft dampers, net-forged differential gears and pinions, differential assemblies, valve bodies, hollow shafts, clutch modules, and end covers. It has eight plants in the U.S. and other operations in Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
Grede Holdings was formed in 2009 by investors merging the former Grede LLC and Citation Corp. organizations. After several further acquistions, it now includes 17 foundries and machine shops in the U.S. and Mexico, where it manufactures gray and ductile iron castings, and specialty ferrous products like high-silicon molybdenum iron castings.
American Securities acquired Grede Holdings from Wayzata Investment Partners LLC in June 2014, and the three organizations were combined as Metaldyne Performance Group in August 2014.
“The combination of Grede, HHI, and Metaldyne to form MPG is a milestone,” according to George Thanopoulos, CEO. “We believe MPG will serve as a prominent company with global scale that enables us to better serve our collective customer base, provide a platform for expanded capabilities, and more quickly adapt to the evolving industry trends in the automotive supply chain.”
