NGK SPARK PLUG, the Nagoya, Japan-based comprehensive ceramics processing manufacturer most known for its spark plug business, has bought oxygen equipment maker CAIRE Inc. from Chart Industries Inc.
Established longer than 80 years ago, NGK has been leveraging its global network of sales and manufacturing infrastructure with more than 15,000 employees to start producing products for environment energy, next-generation vehicles and healthcare. To that end, NGK will add CAIRE’s oxygen therapy portfolio of portable and stationary oxygen concentrators, including the AirSep, SeQual and HELiOS brands that are well known to the HME industry.
“This acquisition fits nicely into our long‐term plans that seek to leverage our core ceramics and sensor technologies to serve the medical care space,” said Yoshiyuki Takayanagi, NGK corporate officer, who joined in celebrations this week at CAIRE’s Ball Ground, Ga. Headquarters. “CAIRE has good employees, distribution and production, and is already making a difference in healthcare – manufacturing products that patients and industry can depend upon.”
“We are very proud of our heritage and the work we do in support of our customers and patients around the globe,” said Earl Lawson, president of CAIRE. “NGK SPARK PLUG has a long‐term commitment to be a leader in the health care market and CAIRE is a really important step in that journey for the company.”
At the celebration, Takayangi and Lawson exchanged sculptures to commemorate the event: a glass dogwood sculpture that will reside at NGK’s Nagoya headquarters, and a ceramic owl that for the Ball Ground facility. CAIRE also planted a dwarf ornamental Japanese maple tree at the Ball Ground site.
