Effective September 1, 2015, Hoerbiger Group (Zug, Switzerland; www.hoerbiger.com) will acquire internationally renowned explosion protection specialist IEP Technologies, LLC (Marlborough, Mass. ; www.ieptechnologies.com) from Sentinel Capital Partners (New York, N.Y.; www.sentinelpartners.com). This acquisition will make Hoerbiger one of the world’s leading providers of sophisticated safety and explosion protection technology for a broad range of industrial plant engineering applications. The parties agreed to keep the purchase price confidential.
Hoerbiger is a worldwide leading provider of performance-defining components and systems for the oil, gas, and process industries, the automotive industry, and the mechanical and plant engineering field.
Safety and explosion protection are attractive growth markets with large potential that ideally complement Hoerbiger’s core business. Even today, the Group offers a wide range of safety-related products and services. For decades, Hoerbiger has been an innovation and technology leader for explosion protection and check valves for oil, gas, carbon black and dust applications in the mechanical and plant engineering industry.
IEP Technologies operates internationally through locations in Marlborough, Mass.; Ratingen, Germany; Olten, Switzerland; Paris, France; Izmir, Turkey; and Cheltenham, U.K. and is a leading provider of explosion protection systems and services. The company is in particular market leader for explosion mitigation systems in process plants. An unrivaled global service network ensures that explosion protection equipment is always operational and effective.
Hoerbiger is acquiring IEP Technologies from Sentinel Capital Partners, a private equity firm that created the company through a complex carve-out of the industrial explosion protection businesses of UTC Climate, Controls & Security, a unit of United Technologies Corp. Under Sentinel’s ownership, IEP Technologies’ four legacy brands, each operating in its own geographic market, were combined to form a unified, global leader in the industrial explosion protection industry. Previously, the investment firm had effectively strengthened the core competencies of IEP Technologies. Authorities and other institutions engaged in safety and explosion protection also draw on IEP Technologies’ subject matter expertise and know-how in the development of national and international standards.
IEP Technologies has consolidated experience of more than 50 years in safety and explosion protection technology. Extensive research and development projects, in particular as they relate to computer-assisted calculation and simulation of explosion processes as well as the development of tailor-made solutions for the detection and mitigation of explosions in industrial process equipment, have established the company as a leader in this highly specialized and financially extremely attractive niche market. This leadership position is also evidenced in the high number of cases where destruction of the protected plant part was reliably prevented.
“The acquisition of IEP Technologies is an excellent investment for Hoerbiger to strategically strengthen our business model and expand our portfolio,” comments Martin Komischke, CEO and chairman of the Executive Board of Hoerbiger Holding AG. “We feel that safety and explosion protection technology hold outstanding development potential. The innovative strength and knowledge of IEP Technologies will allow us to tap valuable synergies for our core business and core competencies. At the same time, we will strengthen Hoerbiger’s leading role as a developer and global provider of performance-defining, and increasingly safety-defining, components and services for the oil, gas, and process industries, the automotive industry, and mechanical and plant engineering field.”