Alantra advises Rieter on the acquisition of Barmag from OC Oerlikon

May 2025

Buy-side advisory

Value CHF 850mn

Zurich – Alantra acted as exclusive financial advisor to Rieter on its CHF 850mn acquisition of Barmag from OC Oerlikon. The acquisition will create a globally leading player in natural and manmade fibers, headquartered in Winterthur, Switzerland, and is highly complementary to Rieter’s short-staple fiber business.

Barmag is a provider of filament spinning systems used for manufacturing manmade fibers, texturing machines, Bulked Continuous Filament systems, staple fiber spinning and nonwovens solutions and – as an engineering services provider – offers solutions along the textile value chain. In the financial year 2024, the company generated sales of CHF 734mn with around 2,600 employees. 

The transaction is fully in line with Rieter’s strategy and follows previous acquisitions, where Rieter complemented its portfolio in short-staple fiber machinery and expanded its footprint in components and machinery for manmade fiber production. The combined platform allows to leverage the recovery of global filament and short staple fiber spinning markets and to reduce cyclicality due to diversification of end-markets. The acquisition will further enhance Rieter’s position in the important Asia-Pacific region and provide access to Barmag’s filament expertise, which will help to further scale Rieter’s own capabilities and improve digitization solutions and product sustainability.

The enterprise value of CHF 850mn represents a through-the-cycle EV/EBITDA of 6.3x (excluding synergies). If certain financial criteria are achieved by 2028, an earn-out component will be paid to the seller. The acquisition is expected to enhance Rieter’s financial performance given Barmag’s structurally higher through-the-cycle profitability and margin resilience in market downturn. 

The acquisition financing is secured by a bridge loan facility. Refinancing of the bridge facility will happen through a fully underwritten CHF 400mn equity rights issue with tradable subscription rights, a CHF 77mn non-pre-emptive equity private placement which is fully committed and subscribed by Rieter’s two largest shareholders and a bank debt financing.