Masan Tungsten Limited Liability Company (MTC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Masan Resources Corporation (MSR), signed an agreement on Tuesday to purchase the tungsten business of H.C. Starck Group GmbH (HCS).

HCS is a leading manufacturer of midstream tungsten products such as high-tech tungsten metal powders and carbides. HCS has production hubs in Europe, North America, and China serving customers across the globe.

A highly qualified and professional team of experts in R&D, application engineering, coupled with modern automated manufacturing processes ensure its customers benefit from the highest and consistent quality products.

HCS owns 105 patents and patent applications and other intellectual properties to manufacture innovative products such as ultrafine size tungsten compounds. In addition, HCS is one of the few companies in the world with a comprehensive, environmentally sound tungsten scrap recycling platform backed by proprietary intellectual property.  

The transaction is a strategic step in executing MSR’s vision to become a leading vertically integrated high-tech industrial materials platform in the world.

MSR’s low cost, stable primary supply of ammonium paratungstate (APT), combined with HCS’ scrap recycling platform, will provide MSR a global competitive edge.

This will enable MSR to generate strong and consistent cash flows across price cycles and expand MSR’s addressable market by 3.5 times from US$1.3 billion to US$4.6 billion.

MSR will become a leading midstream tungsten products supplier across critical industries such as mechanical engineering and tool making, mining, automotive and energy, aviation and the chemical industry. The move into midstream tungsten products is also value enhancing as these products command on average a 30-50 percent premium to APT products.  

This transaction will create a global high-tech industrial company in Vietnam of scale, but more importantly, enhance Vietnam’s competitive edge in global tungsten market by owning a cutting-edge R&D and technology platform and provide Vietnamese workforce an opportunity to develop engineering skills in the high-tech manufacturing space, as part of the globalization of MSR’s business.

Closing of the transaction is inter alia subject to certain regulatory approvals, including governmental approvals in Vietnam. Both parties agreed not to disclose financial terms of the transaction at this stage.