RHI Magnesita

Origins

In 1908, Mining engineer Josef Hörhager discovered a magnesite deposit at Millstätter Alpe in Austria.^[3] The German-American Emil Winter acquired the mining rights and founded the "Austro-American Magnesite Company" (later Radex Austria).^[3]

Growth

In 1974 the company was bought by National Refractories Co. and in 1987 Radex-Heraklith Industriebeteiligungs AG (RHI AG) emerged from the National Refractories Co. as a result of a management buyout.^[3] In 1991, RHI AG acquired Veitscher Magnesitwerke Actien-Gesellschaft, a rival business founded by Carl Spaeter in Germany in 1889.^[3]

In 1995, RHI AG acquired a majority stake in its previous competitor Didier-Werke AG.^{[note 1][3]}

RHI AG acquired Global Industrial Technologies (GIT) in 2000.^[3] GIT had a subsidiary, APG (formerly A.P. Green Refractories Company), which has been named as defendant in hundreds of thousands of asbestos-related injury litigation cases.^[4] GIT entered bankruptcy under Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code in February 2002.^[4] RHI AG sold its North American subsidiaries, including GIT, later in the year.^[3] Harbison-Walker Refractories, A.P. Green and North American Refractories were merged and spun off as ANH Refractories Company in 2002 (renamed HarbisonWalker International in 2015).^[5] In 2004, the company was required to pay a civil penalty of $650,000 for failing to undertake asbestos remediation at a plant in Marelan, Quebec, Canada which it had been ordered to sell to Resco Products, Inc. in 1999.^[6]

RHI Magnesita

In October 2017 RHI AG merged with Magnesita, a Brazilian competitor, delisted from the Vienna Stock Exchange and secured a listing on the London Stock Exchange as RHI Magnesita.^[7] The RHI Magnesita shares can still be traded via the global market segment of the Vienna Stock Exchange.^[8][9] In 2024, it acquired the US-based Resco Group to expand the capacity of its supply chain in the USA.^[10]

India

The company completed the takeover of Stopinc AG (Switzerland) in 2012^[11] and bought a majority stake in Orient Refractories.^[12] In May 2021, RHI Magnesita merged its other two Indian subsidiaries, RHI Clasil and RHI India, into Orient Refractories, which was publicly listed.^[13] In July 2021, Orient Refractories was renamed to RHI Magnesita India.^[14] RHI Magnesita India is publicly listed on the National Stock Exchange of India and the Bombay Stock Exchange.^[15]