Timken To Acquire BEKA Lubrication

The Timken Co., a provider of engineering bearings and power transmission products, has signed a US$165 million agreement to acquire BEKA Lubrication, a supplier of automatic lubrication systems.

“The acquisition of BEKA expands our global leadership in the highly attractive automatic lubrication systems market sector, increases our geographic scale and market coverage in Europe and Asia and will create new opportunities to serve wind and other industrial end markets more fully,” said Richard G. Kyle, Timken’s president and chief executive officer. “BEKA is a premier brand and technical leader, and like our Groeneveld business, offers automatic and central lubrication systems that reduce operating costs and extend equipment life.”

BEKA, headquartered in Pegnitz, Germany, has been family owned and operated since it was founded in 1927. The company employs 900 people, with manufacturing, research and development based in Germany, and assembly facilities and sales offices around the world.

Timken first entered the automatic lubrication market in 2013 with the acquisition of Interlube and then expanded its portfolio and global reach by acquiring Groeneveld in 2017. With the acquisition of BEKA, Timken will become the world’s second largest producer of industrial automatic lubrication systems, the company said.

The transaction is subject to regulatory review approval in Germany, and is expected to close during the fourth quarter of this year. It will be funded with cash and existing debt facilities.