Recently “The Monty Heat Treat News” had an article entitled; “Why Are So Many North American Commercial Heat Treaters Closing”. in this article we mentioned the many and varied reasons why so many were closing, one reason was retirement by the owners. 

As it turns out recently, we have run across 4 commercial operations in North America which are for sale, interestingly enough in at least 3 situations retirement is a factor in the decision to sell which ties into our previous article. 

Included in this list is a commercial heat treater by the name of MMS Thermal Processing in Davenport, Iowa, USA founded in 2006. Surprisingly enough for a commercial heat treater the main focus of this company is vacuum carburizing, and it is our belief that MMS has one of only two multi cell vacuum carburizing systems produced by Surface Combustion in the early 2000’s. It would appear that this family owned business is for sale mainly because of a lack of knowledge and interest in the heat treat industry by the owners. Having said that the equipment appears to be relatively new and in good condition. 

In the case of the other 3 shops for sale, retirement is the #1 reason for looking at a sale of the business. In each case the firms are profitable, well run and well established, the reality in each case though is that either there are no family members to take over the business or that the next generation does not have an interest in taking over ownership. 

In an industry with over 500 different commercial heat treaters in the US it is no surprise that at least 4 are for sale, the surprise would be if there aren’t others-and there are. An obvious example of this is firms with venture capital ownership, with all due respect to venture capital firms the focus quite often is a profitable sale of the business. 

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