Georg Fischer (GF) agrees to divest its GF Machining Solutions division

Georg Fischer AG (GF), a Swiss industrial company listed at SIX Swiss Exchange (ticker: GF) announced today that it has signed an agreement to divest its GF Machining Solutions Division to United Grinding Group, a Swiss-based global leader in grinding technology. The value of the transaction is in the range of CHF 630 to CHF 650 million. Closing is expected to take place in the first half of 2025, subject to approval of the competent anti-trust and other authorities.

Niederer Kraft Frey acts as lead counsel to GF in connection with the divestment and the related carve-out transaction.

GF is an international industrial and publicly listed corporation with its headquarter in Schaffhausen (Switzerland). GF is active in the fields of piping systems, building flow solutions, casting solutions and machining solutions. The divestment of the machine-tool business is part of GF’s new strategic focus on Water and Flow Solutions and increases GF’s strategic flexibility to pursue further growth as well as value-generating investments in these strategic fields.

United Grinding Group, whose origin dates back about 100 years, is a global leader in grinding technology and employs more than 2000 employees globally. The majority shareholder of United Grinding is Patinex AG, a Swiss holding company wholly owned by Martin and Rosmarie Ebner. Together, GF Machining Solutions and United Grinding will combine forces to form the leader in ultra-precision machining.

The NKF team is co-led by Transactions partners Andrea Giger and Philip Spoerlé and further comprises senior associates Katalin Siklosi and Julia Tolstova and partner Ulysses von Salis (all Transactions), partner Thomas Hochstrasser (Commercial), associate Manuel Hirlinger and junior associates Manuel Constam and Norina Frey (all Transactions), partner Adrian Koller and junior associate Carlotta Ulmer (both Financing), partners Thomas Graf, Marcel Meier and Daniela Schmucki, senior associates Sven Kälin and Morgan Boeffard, associates Michel Herren and Besnik Omuri (all Tax), partner Fabiano Menghini and associate Noémie Amman (both Real Estate) and partner Nicolas Birkhäuser and associate Lukas Poschung (both Antitrust/FDI).

NKF is supported by multi-jurisdictional teams of White & Case LLP led by Gernot Wagner, Rebecca Emory and Stefan Bressler (all Frankfurt) and the teams of Dentons in Vietnam and Taiwan.