Niles Iron & Metal sold to Charter Steel group

Niles Iron & Metal Co. (NIMCO), based in Niles, Ohio, has been sold to Charter Manufacturing, the parent company of Charter Steel, according to the Chicago office of Cleveland-based investment banking firm Brown Gibbons Lang & Co. (BGL).

Founded in 1917 and managed for many years by members of the Clayman family, BGL describes NIMCO’s sites in northeast Ohio as being strategically located to serve wide supplier bases and consumers throughout the Midwest and Northeast.

Charter Steel likely has been one of those consumers, with the firm operating a 500,000 ton-per-year electric arc furnace (EAF) mill about 60 miles west, near Cleveland.

NIMCO has two locations in Niles. The larger yard, sitting on more than 50 acres, hosts the company’s ferrous scrap processing operations, including shearing and baling equipment. A smaller location acts as the company’s nonferrous warehouse and processing site.

Charter Manufacturing, headquartered in Mequon, Wisconsin, was founded in 1936 and is a family-owned group of differentiated metals manufacturing businesses. The company employs more than 2,300 people in five business units: Charter Steel, Charter Wire, Charter Dura-Bar, Charter Aarrowcast (a foundry that consumes ferrous scrap) and now Niles Iron & Metal.

BGL calls the transaction “unique" in today’s age because it brings together two fourth-generation privately held companies, saying the partnership will allow both companies to continue their family legacy while benefiting from existing synergies between Niles Iron and Charter Manufacturing.

BGL's Metals & Advanced Metals Manufacturing investment banking team served as the exclusive financial advisor to Niles Iron in the transaction.