Apr 10 2007
Worldwide industrial services company Harsco Corporation announced today that it has acquired privately-held Performix Technologies, Ltd., a Ohio-based company that is one of the United States’ leading producers of specialty additives used by steelmakers in the ladle refining of molten steel. The acquisition is expected to be accretive to Harsco’s 2007 earnings. Terms were not disclosed.
Performix produces a range of proprietary materials that are added during ladle refining to improve steel quality and increase steelmaking efficiency. Ladle refining allows steelmakers to process their molten steel to exact chemical specifications outside the steelmaking furnace, thereby freeing up the furnaces for greater production capacity while decreasing energy and other costs per ton of steel produced.
Performix operates from two plants in the U.S. and serves most of the major steelmakers in the upper Midwest and Canada. The company has more than 30 years of experience at the forefront of ladle metallurgy, and maintains extensive laboratory facilities to assist customers in determining the optimum Performix product for each ladle. Performix recorded 2006 sales of approximately $29 million and employs approximately 60 people.
Harsco looks to expand Performix’s value-enhancing product technology into other steelmaking locations served by Harsco throughout the world. The acquisition closely complements Harsco’s National Recovery Systems operations, which Harsco acquired in December 2005 as part of its acquisition of the northern hemisphere steel mill services operations of Brambles Industrial Services. Like Performix, National Recovery Systems also specializes in providing blended materials used in the steelmaking process, recycling steelmaking by-products into briquettes that are recharged back into production for cost-effective and environmentally-responsible reuse.