NORTH CANTON, Ohio—Timken Co. has purchased BEKA Lubrication for $165 million, the North-Canton based industrial manufacturer disclosed Sept.16.
Based in Pegnitz, Germany, BEKA is a privately held supplier of automatic lubrication systems for wind energy, food and beverage manufacturing, rail, on- and off-highway vehicles and equipment, and other industries worldwide.
Timken did not disclose BEKA's revenues, but said the company employs about 900 people and will complement Timken's existing international bearings and power transmission businesses. It will fit especially well with business related to the Groeneveld Group, a provider of automatic lubrication solutions based in the Netherlands that Timken acquired in 2017 for $280 million.
"The acquisition of BEKA expands our global leadership in the highly attractive automatic lubrication systems market sector, increases our geographic scale and market coverage in Europe and Asia and will create new opportunities to serve wind and other industrial end markets more fully," said Richard G. Kyle, Timken president and CEO, in a news release. "BEKA is a premier brand and technical leader, and like our Groeneveld business, offers automatic and central lubrication systems that reduce operating costs and extend equipment life. We expect to realize significant synergies, margin expansion and revenue growth opportunities through the combined Groeneveld-BEKA business."
The deal is Timken's third in the sector, which it entered in 2013 when it acquired the U.K.'s Interlube Systems, which had sales of about $13 million per year.
Since then, through growth and the other acquisitions, Timken says it's now a major player in the automatic lubrication market.
"With the acquisition of BEKA, Timken will become the world's second-largest producer of industrial automatic lubrication systems, which displace manual lubrication methods to improve equipment life and reliability, while reducing the total cost of ownership," the company said in a statement. "The transaction advances the company's strategy, which is focused on growing its leadership position in engineered bearings while diversifying Timken's portfolio into adjacent products and markets."