Heraeus announced the acquisition of 100% of McCol Metals on June 24, 2024. The St. John’s operation would continue within Heraeus Precious Metals. The announcement named Eastern Composite Services as the previous owner and described a longstanding relationship with Heraeus. A later 2024 notice confirmed McCol was operating under the Heraeus brand, with the Newfoundland site inside Precious Metals.
The specialist capability had a development history. In an August 2023 company-authored account, McCol described years of research and four years since commercializing its recovery process for spent mixed-metal-oxide anodes on titanium bases. The distinction matters: this was an account of research becoming a commercial service, not simply a proposed recovery technique.
That history places commercial know-how before the sale. Heraeus acquired an existing specialist capability; the transaction itself did not create it.
Heraeus Precious Metals’ current business description connects trading, industrial products and recycling across the precious-metals lifecycle. It includes refining and recycling platinum-group metals as well as supplying products for industrial applications. Trading metals, supplying industrial products and recovering material are different activities within that model. The current description covers the wider business, without assigning every activity to a particular site.
The buyer described McCol’s iridium recovery expertise as an addition to its recycling capabilities. That explains the platform fit; growth and network benefits remained aims.
What the service returns
Heraeus’ current global anode page describes an electrode with a titanium base carrying metal oxides, including iridium and ruthenium oxides, which conduct electricity and help reactions occur. The coating and the base have different roles. Its recycling offer credits customers with recovered precious metals. A separate analysis service measures precious-metal loading in samples. Cleaning returns the base, or substrate, ready for recoating. These are current global offers with different outputs, not a prescribed sequence.
A sample result supplies information, not recovered metal or a whole-load measurement. A clean substrate is prepared hardware, not a completed recoat. The service required depends on which output the customer needs.
Where recovery meets production
A separate German example makes the industrial connection concrete. In December 2025, Salzgitter described cooperation with Umicore MDS to recover iridium from electro-galvanizing anodes. These electrodes help apply zinc corrosion protection to steel strip; their iridium-containing coating is distinct from the zinc layer on the steel. The electrode coating needs renewal. According to the account, earlier coating residues had not been cost-efficiently recycled before recoating. The work involved an anode manufacturer, a steel producer and a research unit. Salzgitter attributed integration into everyday operations to joint trials and development of internal processes. The account concerns this German collaboration.
The German coating-renewal problem shows why the next deliverable matters: recovering precious metal addresses coating material, while a cleaned substrate leaves recoating to be done. An owner comparing services must connect the promised output to the work that remains.
Heraeus framed McCol’s recovery expertise as a fit with its wider business. In the German example, reported trials and internal-process work connected participants’ capabilities to production. Assessing an acquisition thus means examining both the expertise being bought and how participants will coordinate its use.
For general information and education, not legal, tax, investment or valuation advice. Reported transactions do not predict your business’s value, financing terms or sale outcome. Consult qualified advisers about your situation.
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