W.W. Grainger Inc., Lake Forest, IL, will sell Fabory Group (Fabory) to Torqx Capital Partners, a Dutch private equity company. The company will continue offering broad line MRO products to customers in Western Europe through its Cromwell and Zoro business units.
DG Macpherson, chairman and CEO of Grainger, said Torqx will better align with Fabory’s growth objectives. Harmen Geerts, managing partner of Torqx, said in the press release, “Based on our extensive experience and strong track record with technical distribution businesses, we see a strong fit between Fabory and Torqx. We can help the company to strengthen its position as leading fastener specialist in its core markets and achieve its full potential.”
Headquartered in Tilburg, the Netherlands, Fabory is a distributor of fasteners that Grainger acquired in 2011 for approximately $344 million, according to a company press release. Nicknamed the “Masters in Fasteners,” at the time of the acquisition, the company sold 80,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs) to 120,000 customers in 14 companies. The release said Fabory was “aggressively expanding its MRO and fastener offering throughout Central and Eastern Europe and also provides supply chain fastener solutions to OEM customers in Europe, North America and China ,as well as through a joint venture in India through Sterling Fabory Ltd.”