Worthington Industries, headquartered in Columbus Ohio, is a company engaged in metal milling and produces cylinders and cryogenic cylinders. On November 23 it announced that its Cryogenic business in the Pressure Cylinder segment would acquire the global CryoScience business of Taylor Wharton, headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, which manufactures cryogenic cylinders and which has applied for protection under Chapter 11. Also included in the acquisition is the manufacturing facility in Theodore, Alabama. Worthington Industries will furthermore acquire certain Taylor Wharton intellectual property and manufacturing assets related to cryogenic equipment and the LNG business. The price tag of the acquisition comes to USD33.25 million. In accordance with Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy code which Taylor Wharton has filled for, the acquisition is expected to close on or about December 7.

The CryoScience Business of Taylor Wharton handles cryogenic biologic specimen storage, dewars/shippers, controls and data management solutions for global biomedical research and development, healthcare, bio-banking, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and animal husbandry markets. Products are distributed through warehouses it has in Germany and Australia.

Sean Murray, general manager of the Worthington Cryogenics business commented, “This purchase extends our cryogenic capabilities into new, global end markets in life science and health care.” He further went on to say, “Taylor Wharton began manufacturing its CryoScience product in 1957 and has developed a robust portfolio of quality products and a strong distribution network in the bioscience space, which we plan to grow. We are also excited about the US manufacturing platform the Alabama facility affords us as we grow in cryogenic industrial gas and LNG.”

Worthington plans to utilize the Alabama plant to produce hydrogen, industrial gas and LNG cryogenic transport trailers that are now being produced at its plant in its Boston facility. It will eventually produce all of the transport trailers. In the future this plant could produce industrial and LNG products such as bulk, microbulk, and engineered systems for liquid and gas applications in markets which encompass energy production, industrial fabrication, and manufacturing and hydrogen distribution.

The view is that the sales setup for Taylor Wharton products in Japan will not change.