Spirax-Sarco in exclusive talks to buy Vulcanic

Thermal energy management specialist Spirax-Sarco Engineering has entered into exclusive negotiations to buy Vulcanic from French private equity group Qualium for €261.7m (£225.5m) on a cash and debt-free basis.

Established in 1973, Vulcanic is a European industrial electric heating group and is the largest supplier in Europe of bespoke industrial electric heating solutions.

In the year ended 31 December 2021, the business recorded revenues of €89.4m (£76.8m), earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (of €17.6m (£15.2m) and earnings before interest and tax of €16.0m (£13.8m) on an adjusted pro-forma basis.

Spirax said on Monday that Vulcanic will support the delivery of growth in its Electric Thermal Solutions (ETS) business through its existing customers, products and operational footprints which are mostly in the EMEA region and will complement the company’s existing Chromalox business, which is mostly focused on the Americas region.

Vulcanic operates a direct sales model to end users and Original Equipment Manufacturers, as well as contractors, and serves a range of markets aligned to the core market sectors of ETS.

Chief executive Nicholas Anderson said: "We are looking forward to welcoming colleagues from Vulcanic into our Group. We have been following Vulcanic for some time and believe the acquisition represents an excellent opportunity to broaden our addressable market and further deploy our industry leading technologies in Europe.

"Vulcanic's existing strength and scale in Europe - with further investment by our group - will provide a fantastic platform for growth, especially for our recently launched portfolio of TargetZero solutions, which electrify heat generation for industrial processes to support our customers' decarbonisation objectives."