Colfax Corporation is an American corporation manufacturing welding, air and gas handling equipment, and medical devices headquartered in Annapolis Junction, Maryland. Indexed on the NYSE, the company was originally founded as a spinoff from the American conglomerate Danaher Corporation. In 2011, Colfax acquired British Charter International PLC, which in turn owned Swedish ESAB. Both companies have since been wholly owned by Colfax. Further Colfax also acquired Allweiler. The company made its largest acquisition ever in November 2018, buying medical device company DJO Global for $3.15 billion.
History
Colfax was founded in 1995 by Steven and Mitchell Rales. In August 1997, Colfax Corporation acquired approximately 93% of IMO's common stock through a public tender offer. At the time of the acquisition, IMO was a diversified industrial manufacturer, with $469.0 million in annual revenue and five business units: Boston Gear, IMO Pump, Morse Controls, Gems Sensors, and Roltra Morse. Simultaneously with the closing of the tender offer, IMO sold its Gems Sensors unit to Danaher. In February 1998, IMO sold Roltra Morse to Magna International. These divestitures were made to narrow the strategic focus to two groups. Consisting of two groups, power transmission and fluid handling, during its early years Colfax focused on strong brands that had leading positions in their markets. In July 1998 the German-based Allweiler was purchased to enhance the position in the Fluid Handling segment. In February 2005 the Power Transmission group was sold to Genstar Capital. At that time the President and CEO, John Young, promoted Scott Faison to SVP Finance & CFO and consolidated the Fluid Handling Group leadership with the corporate team in Richmond Virginia. Acquisitions were then made of Zenith Pumps, Portland Valve, Lubrication Systems Company and Fairmount Automation to the Fluid Handling platform. Colfax went public with an initial public offering in May 2008, after first quarternet profit of that year was $8.8 million. In January 2012, it completed the acquisition of Charter International, the parent company of ESAB and Howden, for $2.4 Billion. The revenue of the company for 2012 was $3 billion. In July 2015, Matthew Trerotola was appointed CEO. In the 7 months following, the stock price fell by 40%, and Trerotola was awarded a $9 million bonus. In December 2017, Colfax sold its fluid handling platform to Circor for cash and stock. This reduced the size of the company by about $0.5 billion. It also changed the name of the Gas and Fluid Handling division to the Air and Gas Handling division consisting of Howden. The Fab Tech group remained unchanged consisting of ESAB and Victor. In August 2018, Reuters reported that "Colfax Corp has an 8 percent sales exposure to Russia, according to the Goldman Sachs note." In November 2018, Colfax expanded into the medical device space by acquiring DJO Global from The Blackstone Group for $3.15 billion. KPS Capital Partners announced on May 16th 2019 that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Howden, from Colfax Corporation for $1.80 billion, including $1.66 billion in cash consideration and $0.14 billion in assumed liabilities and minority interest, subject to customary closing adjustments.
