Houlihan Lokey Advises Hillenbrand

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Milacron LLC, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Hillenbrand, Inc. (NYSE:HI) has sold its Cimcool business to DuBois Chemicals, Inc. The sale follows Hillenbrand's previously announced strategic review of alternatives for this business, which was part of the 2019 acquisition of Milacron Holdings Corp. DuBois acquired Cimcool at a purchase price of approximately $224 million in cash. In addition, DuBois has agreed to pay up to $26 million in the contingent purchase price, upon the future sale of the combined DuBois and Cimcool businesses. The transaction was signed and announced on March 20, 2020, and closed on March 30, 2020. 

Cimcool is a leading global formulator and manufacturer of high-performance specialty metalworking fluids, including removal, forming, protective, and cleaning fluids. With its more than 320 employees, the business serves a wide range of customers across diverse end markets and geographies. Cimcool operates four blending facilities in the U.S., the Netherlands, China, and South Korea.

Hillenbrand is a global diversified industrial company with businesses that serve a wide variety of industries around the world. Hillenbrand's portfolio includes industrial businesses, such as Coperion, Milacron Injection Molding & Extrusion, and Mold-Masters, in addition to Batesville, a recognized leader in the death care industry in North America. Hillenbrand is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange and generated revenues of more than $1,900 million in 2019.

Founded in 1920, DuBois is a premier provider of customized and value-added specialty chemicals solutions and services to more than 15,000 customers. DuBois researches, develops, manufactures, and supports a broad range of specialty chemical products and related equipment to provide solutions to customers' most challenging performance, quality, cost, safety, and compliance issues for a variety of industries. DuBois is a portfolio company of Altas Partners, an investment firm with a long-term orientation focused on acquiring significant interests in high-quality, market-leading businesses. The firm manages more than $7 billion on behalf of endowments, foundations, public pension funds, and other institutional investors.

Houlihan Lokey served as financial advisor to Hillenbrand and assisted in structuring and negotiating the transaction on its behalf. This transaction highlights Houlihan Lokey’s deep knowledge of the specialty chemicals industry and its continued success advising mid-cap industrial companies in complex carve-out situations.