Braidy Industries is an Ashland, Kentucky-based company, planning to become an aluminum alloys manufacturer for aluminum in the automotive and food and beverage industry.
Subsidiaries
Braidy Industries, Inc. owns Braidy Atlas, a start-up that has designed and engineered the first aluminum rolling mill to be built in the United states in nearly 40 years. It also owns Veloxint, an MIT incubated technology company and NanoAL, a Northwestern University incubated technology company.
History
Braidy Industries was founded by Craig T. Bouchard who wanted to create eco-friendly aluminum alloys. The industry demand was bending towards stronger and lighter materials and the company was founded to accommodate the market gap created by this generational shift. Braidy Industries started off with an initial project of a fully integrated aluminum rolling mill in the Greenup County, Kentucky, comprising a 2.5 million square-foot area. The site is located in Eastern Kentucky and the facility costs were estimated to be around $1.6 billion. The site for the mill is located on the Ohio River and the CSX railroad runs through the site as well as I-64 connects the site to various automotive plants in 300 miles around the region. This advantage allows the site to utilize the just-in-time approach. The company is working with the Ashland Alliance and the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority as a part of the Kentucky Business Investment program based on which they received up to $10 million in tax incentives.
In April 2019 Braidy announced a joint project with RUSAL, a Russian company partially owned by the oligarch Oleg Deripaska. The project is to develop the mill site in Ashland, Kentucky "to produce flat-rolled aluminium products for the U.S. automotive industry," according to a company press release.
Bouchard problems
In February 2020, Braidy Industries announced that they uncovered evidence that company founder Craig Bouchard misused company money while he was CEO of the firm. In a court filing, the company claims that an internal review raised several red flags about Bouchard's travel spending, credit card charges and legal expenses. A third-party firm was hired to conduct an independent investigation. In June 2020 David L. Foster stepped in as acting president and CEO.
