ATA, an Irish-owned and Cavan-headquartered international precision engineering group with facilities in Ireland, the UK and the USA, has acquired Karnasch Professional Tools GmbH located in Heddesheim, near Mannheim and in Gorsdorf, near Berlin.
The acquisition of Karnasch marks another important milestone for ATA and the first since the 2016 management buyout of its private equity partners. The acquisition brings the value of the combined enterprise to circa €160m and increases the worldwide workforce to nearly four hundred staff of whom approximately one hundred and fifty are based in Ireland.
The original ATA business was acquired in 2008 by Peter Cosgrove and equity investors. Revenues grew substantially in the following decade, (mainly through a series of international acquisitions) from €17m then to €80m.
Established in 1960, Karnasch is a third-generation, family-owned company, selling precision industrial tools across multiple applications including grinding, milling, cutting, sawing and drilling. Karnasch enjoys market premium positions in a number of important product categories servicing various industry sectors including automotive, aerospace, construction and mechanical engineering. The company has a strong position in its domestic German market and exports to over 60 countries worldwide.
Michael and Sascha Karnasch will continue as managing directors in Karnasch, retaining a shareholding. Both join the ATA senior management team.
ATA CEO, Peter Cosgrove, said: “We have long admired the professionalism of the Karnasch family and have greatly respected their clear market leadership. ATA is delighted to combine forces with a company of this calibre and reputation and look forward to having the benefit of their obvious expertise within the expanded organisation. This transaction is entirely consistent with our strategy to build a global company of scale in this industry and we look forward to delivering on the many market and product synergies that now become available. We are very pleased to have the continued support of our mportant supporter of our ambitious growth strategy.”
Karnasch Managing Director, Michael Karnasch, said: “We are very pleased to be able to join with ATA who we know well and have hugely regarded for over twenty years. ATA are a progressive industry leader. We believe that our new combination provides many excellent opportunities to accelerate for growth, both for our business and for our employees.”
ISIF Senior Investment Director, Fergal McAleavey said: “This is an excellent example of ISIF’s support for indigenous businesses in regions throughout Ireland. As a minority investor bringing long-term capital, ISIF is delighted to team up with ambitious Irish businesses such as ATA as they continue to scale up and expand their domestic and international operations. This is consistent with ISIF’s ‘double bottom line’ mandate of generating a commercial return and supporting economic activity and employment in Ireland.”
Corporate finance advisors to ATA: Shane Lawlor, Investec Bank, Dublin
Legal advisors to ATA: Tim Scanlon and Brian McCloskey, Matheson, Dublin Andreas Kloyer, Luther, Frankfurt
Tax and transaction services advisors to ATA: Paul Tuite, PwC Dublin and PwC Stuttgart
Corporate finance advisors to Karnasch: Allert & Co, Mannheim
Legal advisors to Karnasch: METIS Rechtsanwälte LLP, Frankfurt
Related Glossary Terms
- gang cutting ( milling)
gang cutting ( milling)
Machining with several cutters mounted on a single arbor, generally for simultaneous cutting.
- grinding
grinding
Machining operation in which material is removed from the workpiece by a powered abrasive wheel, stone, belt, paste, sheet, compound, slurry, etc. Takes various forms: surface grinding (creates flat and/or squared surfaces); cylindrical grinding (for external cylindrical and tapered shapes, fillets, undercuts, etc.); centerless grinding; chamfering; thread and form grinding; tool and cutter grinding; offhand grinding; lapping and polishing (grinding with extremely fine grits to create ultrasmooth surfaces); honing; and disc grinding.
- milling
milling
Machining operation in which metal or other material is removed by applying power to a rotating cutter. In vertical milling, the cutting tool is mounted vertically on the spindle. In horizontal milling, the cutting tool is mounted horizontally, either directly on the spindle or on an arbor. Horizontal milling is further broken down into conventional milling, where the cutter rotates opposite the direction of feed, or “up” into the workpiece; and climb milling, where the cutter rotates in the direction of feed, or “down” into the workpiece. Milling operations include plane or surface milling, endmilling, facemilling, angle milling, form milling and profiling.
- sawing
sawing
Machining operation in which a powered machine, usually equipped with a blade having milled or ground teeth, is used to part material (cutoff) or give it a new shape (contour bandsawing, band machining). Four basic types of sawing operations are: hacksawing (power or manual operation in which the blade moves back and forth through the work, cutting on one of the strokes); cold or circular sawing (a rotating, circular, toothed blade parts the material much as a workshop table saw or radial-arm saw cuts wood); bandsawing (a flexible, toothed blade rides on wheels under tension and is guided through the work); and abrasive sawing (abrasive points attached to a fiber or metal backing part stock, could be considered a grinding operation).
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