Date: March 25, 2008
Clayton Capital Partners' Client Caparo Group plc:
Winner of the Best Deal of the Year Under $25 Million
- Crain’s Detroit Business
When Clayton Capital Partners, a St. Louis-based Investment Banking firm was retained by and began an acquisition search on behalf of Caparo Group, they were looking to expand Caparo’s operations within North America.
Clayton Capital Partners found Novi-based voestalpine Polynorm Inc., which had found several interested buyers, but the buyers mostly were interested in Voestalpine's contracts, making a large number of layoffs likely.
Enter Caparo.
Caparo has operations in the United Kingdom, North America, Spain, Dubai, Poland, Thailand and has been growing rapidly as a supplier in India since 2002. It is India's largest metal stamper.
In the United States, Caparo operates primarily as Bull Moose Tube Co., which is based in Chesterfield, Mo. While Bull Moose serves the commercial-building, mechanical and sprinkler-pipe industries, it had little automotive business.
For Caparo, voestalpine Polynorm was an opportunity to gain a foothold in the North American automotive industry.
Caparo was very impressed with the management team lead by Colin Scot. The company's breadth of manufacturing capabilities and quality systems would be a strong platform for growth in automotive in North America.
Voestalpine Polynorm was a steel-stamping company with annual sales of about $60 million. It was owned by Linz, Austria-based voestalpine AG.
Caparo acquired Voestalpine Polynorm on Nov. 1 and renamed it Caparo Vehicle Components Inc. The result: Caparo's acquisition preserved as many as 200 jobs in Southeast Michigan.
So far, the integration has gone well, said Michael Dustmann, COO for Caparo in North America.
“One of the primary reasons we were interested was we saw this as an opportunity to grow Caparo in North America,” Dustmann said. “And we think, based on the reaction we've received from current customers and potential customers, that we will be very successful in the long term.”
Caparo was founded in 1968 by British industrialist Lord Paul of Marylebone, who remains chairman. The group employs about 6,000 and has annual sales of about $1.5 billion.
