Eyeing National Expansion Via Acquisitions
RIE Eyes National Expansion Via Acquisitions
Article Credit: Tim Pennington – Finishing & Coating
Like many relationships, John Warne is in love with zinc-rich coatings, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t interested in seeing other finishes.
The CEO of RIE Coatings has locations in Eden Valley, Minnesota, and in Dubuque, Iowa, and coats billions of fasteners, bolts, nuts, and other major components for the agriculture, wind and solar, recreation, military, and heavy equipment industries.
Warne says their bread-and-butter is expertise in helping OEMs move from traditional zinc plating or galvanizing to thin film protective coatings. But RIE wants to increase its offerings through acquisitions to provide even more finishers to existing and prospective customers.
John Warne is CEO of RIE Coatings that has locations in Eden Valley, Minnesota, and in Dubuque, Iowa.
Additional Industry Finishing Nuance
“We definitely want to add platforms, aside from zinc-rich coating opportunities,” says Warne, whose company is a provider to major global automakers and large fastener distributors.
“We’ve become valued partners to them, and they are always saying, ‘If you all just had a galvanizing arm, or if you had an anodizing arm,’” he says. “It would allow us to be more diverse beyond just our core zinc-rich coatings — which is still important to us — but we’re looking at some additional industry nuance.”
The processes RIE is looking to acquire include electrocoating, galvanizing, physical vapor deposition, electroplating, specialty painting, electroless nickel, thermal spraying, anodizing, or powder coating.
Aside from traditional screws, nuts, bolts, and washers, RIE has expanded heavily into forgings, too, and has a hand-spray department that coats specialty castings. Warne says the configuration and geometry are all very similar.
“It’s really an envelope of about 18 inches and down,” he says.
