ILC Dover’s plant in Frederica is refocusing on the space program under a new $6 million investment by the company. | DBT FILE PHOTO
NEWARK — ILC Dover, a specialized engineering development and manufacturing company, was sold to a rapidly growing industrial company for $2.3 billion earlier this week.
Ingersoll Rand Inc., a public company based in North Carolina that invests in diversified machinery, also paid ILC Dover parent company New Mountain Capital an earnout tied to the company’s 2024 operating efficiency achievements. The deal was announced on March 25.
Under new ownership, ILC Dover will be core to Ingersoll Rand’s rising life sciences division within its existing Precision and Science Technologies department. ILC Dover President and CEO Corey Walker will lead a new division that includes the company’s products as well as six other Ingersoll Rand products.
This will also allow the current Precision and Science Technologies department to focus energy on premium brands.
“I am very proud of our team’s passion for innovation, commitment to world-class quality, and overall dedication to our customers during a period of rapid growth,” Walker said in a statement. “I’m excited to combine the Ingersoll Rand and ILC Life Science portfolio of products that allow us to serve our customers from the discovery phase in the laboratory to the commercial production of life saving therapies. ILC Dover’s direct channel access coupled with Ingersoll Rand’s proven growth and efficiency tools will allow us to accelerate our ability to serve customers across their workflows.”
Ingersoll Rand representatives told the Delaware Business Times that it believes ILC Dover’s position in the space market, as well as pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical sectors, made it an ideal acquisition to the company’s portfolio.
For example, ILC Dover’s experience in manufacturing the production of silicone and thermoplastic molding and extrusion can give Ingersoll Rand a boost in medical device manufacturing, particularly in cardiovascular and neurology.
Ingersoll Rand’s future life science division is expected to create more than $700 million in revenue. ILC Dover would also expand Ingersoll Rand’s reach to 1,000 customers in the life science and health care sectors and grow its market reach to an estimated $10 billion.
“I am incredibly excited to partner with Corey and the outstanding team at ILC, whom we’ve admired for their innovative products and decades of experience in life sciences, to enhance our presence in key workflows and applications,” Ingersoll Rand Chairman and CEO Vicente Reynal said in a prepared statement. “Working together, we will continue to drive sustained growth, lead customer value and innovation, and maximize value creation.”
Ingersoll Rand was formed in early 2020, spinning out of the industrial segment of Ingersoll-Rand plc, now known as Trane Technologies. The company has two business segments: industrial technologies and services, which manufactures air and gas compressor vacuums, loading systems and power tools; and precision and science technologies, which manufacturers metering pumps and compressors.
This is the third time in 20 years that ILC Dover has been sold. The 77-year-old company was owned by Behrman Capital, a private equity investment firm based in New York and San Francisco. In 2003, Behrman bought a majority stake in ILC Dover’s then-parent company in a $303 million deal.
Then in 2020, Behrman Capital sold the Frederica-headquartered company to New Mountain Capital, a New York City firm that currently manages private equity, public equity and credit funds with over $20 billion in assets under management. Terms of the deal were not disclosed at the time of the sale.
ILC Dover also changed up its leadership, with Walker taking the top job. He replaced Fran DiNuzzo, who led ILC Dover since 2015. The company has since grown out of its Kent County roots and into new headquarters at the University of Delaware STAR Campus and opened plans in Mexico and Poland, among other achievements.
Ingersoll Rand representatives told the Delaware Business Times that the company had been in talks with New Mountain Capital since 2023 as it was looking for another addition to its portfolio.
It also became clear in early discussions that ILC Dover’s culture meshed well and its employees were interested in the Ingersoll Rand employee equity program. The company gives each employee a one-time equity grant on the one-year anniversary of an acquisition.
ILC Dover employs more than 2,000 people at six facilities in North America, Europe and Asia. In Delaware, it has 462 employees in two locations, according to Delaware Business Times records.
