It’s now official: German machinery group KraussMaffei (KM, Munich; www.krauss-maffei.com) will be acquired by Canadian private equity company Onex (Toronto / Canada; www.onex.com) for EUR 568m in a deal due to close in March 2013 – see Plasteurope.com of 24.09.2012. This is the first European acquisition for the financial investor that owns US extrusion system specialist Davis-Standard (DS, Pawcatuck, Connecticut; www.davis-standard.com) and once owned Husky Injection Molding Systems (Bolton, Ontario / Canada; www.husky.ca).

Seller is Madison Capital Partners (Chicago, Illinois / USA; www.madisoncapitalpartners.net), which was advised by Goldman Sachs. Several Chinese firms initially are said to have expressed interest in buying KraussMaffei. Names mentioned included Haitian, Cheng Hsong and Long Hong. The German machinery manufacturer, which employs 400,000 people worldwide, had sales of around EUR 1 bn and undisclosed profits in fiscal 2010/2011 (30 September).

In a statement, David Mansell, a managing director at Onex, described KraussMaffei as a “global leader in each of its three segments, with a decades-long reputation for technology and quality.” KraussMaffei CEO Jan Siebert said he is “pleased to be partnering with Onex, given its track record and experience in our industry. Building on our recent success, we see good opportunities to further grow the company,” he added. Onex will inject EUR 264m into the machinery group.

Onex bought Husky at the end of 2007 for nearly EUR 680m – see Plasteurope.com of 19.12.2007 – and sold it to private equity companies Berkshire Partners (Boston, Massachusetts / USA; www.berkshirepartners.com) and Omers Private Equity (Toronto / Canada; www.omerspe.com) in mid-2011 for EUR 1.4 bn. – see Plasteurope.com of 06.05.2011. With effect from the beginning of 2012 it bought Davis-Standard from private equity investor Hamilton Robinson (Stamford, Connecticut / USA; www.hrco.com) for an undisclosed sum – see Plasteurope.com of 10.01.2012.