Castolin Eutectic strengthens its position for further growth with Paragon as new shareholder

Headquartered in Kriftel (Germany), Castolin Eutectic provides the full range of consumables, equipment and services in welding, brazing and coating technologies to more than 40,000 customers around the globe. Active for more than 100 years in the maintenance and repair business, the Castolin Eutectic brand is well known for outstanding technical competence and quality.

John Kirkwood (CEO Castolin Eutectic): “We are looking forward to working with Paragon and are convinced that, together, we can further capitalize on the group’s strengths and strong market positioning. Fresh capital will allow us to invest in various strategic initiatives and continue to pursue M&A opportunities”.

Edin Hadzic, managing partner at Paragon, comments: “Castolin Eutectic is the go-to place for industrial wear protection and repair. We are enthusiastic to welcome this industry champion to the Paragon family and are looking forward to supporting it through the next phase of development”.

Stefan Messer, owner of Messer Group and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of MEC Group, adds: “In Paragon, we have found a professional shareholder with a strong entrepreneurial spirit to whom we can entrust our internationally positioned Castolin Eutectic Group. I am sure that Castolin Eutectic will be in very good hands and that, under the leadership of Paragon, it will continue its successful path of profitable sales growth. Messer will now focus on further strengthening its global industrial, medical and specialty gases business.”

About Castolin Eutectic
Founded in 1906 by Jean-Pierre Wasserman, a pioneer in low temperature cast iron brazing, Castolin Eutectic built a unique reputation in the field of wear protection and repair for industrial equipment by steadily striving for innovation. In six plants across the globe, Castolin Eutectic manufactures a full range of welding, brazing and coating consumables and equipment used in maintenance and repair jobs by more than 40,000 customers and its own service teams. Its more than 1,600 employees generate annual revenues of €300m with customers in more than 50 industries such as machinery & tool building, oil & gas, steel, mining, cement, glass, power generation and agriculture.

Castolin Eutectic’s products are tailored to mitigate wear and abrasion challenges in thousands of unique applications such as coating power plant boilers to avoid corrosion, refurbishing roller mills in concrete plants, hard facing drilling heads for the oil & gas industry, coating corrosive concrete walls of sewage treatment facilities, and refurbishing technical surfaces of construction and agricultural equipment.

A global network of 800 surface protection and repair experts supports customers to find the right solution for their specific wear and abrasion challenges and thus increase the productivity and useful life of their production equipment. This expertise is highly valued by Castolin Eutectic’s customers, as downtimes of industrial production equipment can cost millions daily.

With its unique application know-how, Castolin Eutectic is the trusted partner to execute complex maintenance & repair projects. In its service shops and on-site at the customer Castolin Eutectic’s 350 employee-strong service team helps customers with highly specialized equipment and materials to refurbish worn-out parts and optimize their physical properties (e.g., harden the surface) to increase uptime.

Please visit www.castolin.com for further details.

About MEC Group
MEC (www.mec-holding.de) operates four divisions, who are technology leaders in their segments. Based in Bad Soden (Germany), the company coordinates the global activities of Messer Cutting Systems, Spectron Gas Control Systems and BIT Group. Together with Castolin Eutectic the group generates sales of € 575 million with 3,000 employees.

About Paragon
Paragon is one of the leading independent private equity firms in Europe with more than €1.2 billion of equity under management. Paragon works closely with portfolio companies to achieve sustainable growth and operational excellence. The investment portfolio covers various industries and currently comprises 13 companies. Paragon was founded in 2004 and is based in Munich, Germany. For further information please refer to www.paragon.de.