Dexter Axle – International site assessment

Challenge

SLR led an international team of consultants to support a major international acquisition for The Sterling Group’s portfolio company, Dexter Axle with their acquisition of AL-KO VT, a European designer and manufacturer of chassis, axles, overruns, coupling hitches, braking systems and components.

The fast track global acquisition included 42 sites in 26 countries throughout Europe, Australia, South Africa, Russia, China, and South America. The combined companies have been renamed DexKo Global Inc., which will be a global leader in trailer axle and chassis supply with sales approaching nearly $1 billion.

AL-KO’s Vehicle Technology (VT) operations are headquartered in Germany. The Assessment was performed at the request of The Sterling Group (Sterling), Dexter Axle Holding Company (Dexter), and their legal advisors, Bracewell & Giuliani LLC (Bracewell).

Solution

The SLR team visited and completed Phase I ESAs for 13 of the 22 production facilities representing approximately 87% of the total revenue from all the production Sites combined.

The visited sites were geographically diverse (Europe, China, Australia, and South Africa) and contained a range of production processes including painting, thermoforming, gas nitriding, chrome plating, turning, and milling.

The visited sites included the two sites with known soil and groundwater contamination (Hartha, Germany and Abadiano, Spain).