Basic Carbide acquires Elizabeth Carbide Components - Pittsburgh Business Times

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Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

A Westmoreland County manufacturer in business for more than 40 years is expanding through an acquisition of a Latrobe carbide company.

Basic Carbide Corp., based in Lowber, closed on the acquisition of Elizabeth Carbide Corp. of Latrobe recently. Terms of the deal between Basic Carbide and Linden Street Holdings Inc., formerly Elizabeth Carbide Die Co. Inc., weren’t disclosed. The acquired company, along with more than 50 employees, are now operating under the Basic Carbide Corp. umbrella.

It’s Basic Carbide’s first acquisition.

The acquisition of Elizabeth Carbide gives Basic Carbide an expanded position in the tungsten carbide industry. Basic Carbide, which was founded by John P. Goodrum in 1981, provides custom-made tungsten carbide to customers all over the world. Some of the products that it has is for soda and beer cans and aluminum water bottles. It had 110 employees before the acquisition.

Jonathan P. Goodrum, president of Basic Carbide and John Goodrum’s son, said the companies had worked together in the past. He and his sister, Jennifer L. Goodrum Sampson, EVP and CFO, had been to the plant many times before as Basic Carbide had been a supplier to Elizabeth Carbide.

“We had very close relationships with them, with a lot of respect and how they ran their business,” Goodrum said.

While in the past Basic’s business had been to supply tungsten carbide to companies like Elizabeth to be turned into finished products for various industries, Goodrum said the industry has changed and fewer companies have their own in-house grinding and finishing equipment and the highly skilled workers who did them.

“The industry has evolved over the past 20 years and our customers are looking for a semifinished or finished product,” he said.

The company had been looking to either build up its own operation to finish the products or to acquire a company that did, and at the same time Elizabeth Carbide turned out to be up for sale.

“With the Elizabeth Carbide opportunity coming along, it made much more sense,” Goodrum said.

Along with the acquisition of four manufacturing facilities, headquarters and a warehouse, all in southwestern Pennsylvania, Basic Carbide also acquired technologically advanced CNC equipment that came with Elizabeth. The acquired company’s expertise is not just in tungsten carbide but also ceramics and steel, which expands its business lines.

He especially praised Elizabeth Carbide’s employees.

“We really respected the knowhow and the skilled expertise of the workforce,” he said. “Honestly, the number-one asset in any organization is the people. That’s what makes it successful."

Dale Killmeyer and Charlie Schliebs of Stone Pier Capital Advisers were financial and divestiture advisers to Linden Street Holdings and also to the other former Elizabeth Cos. previously sold to Opera and others. Basic Carbide was represented by Chris Brodman and Metz Lewis Brodman Must O’Keefe LLC.

Killmeyer said the company had conducted an international search for the buyer.

“We were thrilled when the right buyer turned out to be not only another family owned company but also one with all of its ownership and manufacturing history in Western Pennsylvania, a similar culture and an international sales footprint similar to Elizabeth,” Killmeyer said.

Goodrum said the company was working on integration and meeting with the top accounts to tell them about the new combined company.

“We’re very excited,” Goodrum said. “This has been a significant milestone for our organization.”