Centrus buys centrifuge supplier Westerman for $116 million

Centrus Energy has bought Westerman Holdings, the company that builds its centrifuge casings and other major centrifuge components, for about $116 million. The deal puts one of the main hardware bottlenecks in America's enrichment buildout under Centrus' own roof, just as the company tries to turn HALEU and LEU contracts into new cascades.

Key facts

• Centrus paid about $116 million, made up of roughly $95 million in cash and $21 million in Class A common stock.
• The purchase agreement was signed and closed the same day, October 16, 2026, with Centrus acquiring 100% of Westerman's membership interests from its employee stock ownership trust.
• Out of the price, about $31.5 million went to Westerman's subordinated noteholders, $12.7 million repaid a term loan and about $10.5 million covered transaction expenses.
• Westerman was founded in 1909 and has about 400 employees across four facilities in Ohio, Oklahoma and Wyoming.
• Centrus expects the deal to be accretive to adjusted earnings per share in the first year after closing.

What happened

Centrus announced on October 19 that it had acquired Westerman Holdings, LLC, which it described as one of its largest and most diversified suppliers. Westerman already manufactures centrifuge casings and other major components for Centrus' gas centrifuges. It will keep its name and operate as a Centrus subsidiary.

The company's Form 8-K fills in the mechanics. The seller was Ventura Trust, acting as trustee of the Westerman Employee Stock Ownership Trust. The stock component was sized off Centrus' closing share price on October 15, and Centrus agreed to file a shelf registration so the seller can resell those shares. The price is subject to a customary adjustment for closing net working capital. Representations and warranties did not survive closing; Centrus bought a buyer-side insurance policy instead, and key Westerman employees signed retention agreements.

Westerman's chief executive, Jacob Garrett, becomes president of Westerman and a vice president of Centrus. Centrus chief executive Amir Vexler called Westerman "a highly regarded, best-in-class supplier and fabricator for Centrus". Barclays advised Centrus on the deal and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz acted as legal counsel.

Centrus says the cash portion came from cash on hand. The company has also raised fresh equity: it priced a $500 million underwritten public offering of common stock and warrants.

Why it matters

Centrifuges are the core of Centrus' plan to rebuild U.S. enrichment capacity, and every new cascade needs hundreds of machines. Centrus says its expansion will support 430 jobs at its centrifuge manufacturing plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The casings and major components that Westerman produces feed that line. Buying the supplier gives Centrus control over cost, scheduling and capacity for a part it cannot easily source elsewhere.

The company says the acquisition supports its multi-billion-dollar uranium enrichment expansion, and that an integrated supply chain should lower project costs. That matters because Centrus has been signing offtake agreements for fuel it has not yet built the capacity to make. Its HALEU deals with X-energy, Radiant and Antares all depend on new centrifuges being manufactured and installed on time.

Westerman also brings a nuclear product line beyond centrifuge parts. It makes nuclear-grade equipment including UF6 cylinders, the steel containers that move uranium hexafluoride between conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication. Demand for those cylinders rises with every new enrichment program.

The deal also diversifies Centrus' revenue. Westerman makes upstream and midstream oil and gas production equipment and engineered industrial systems, and Centrus says it plans to grow that non-nuclear customer base alongside the enrichment business. For a company whose income has long depended on a small number of utility and government contracts, a manufacturing subsidiary with industrial customers changes the risk profile.

Background

Centrus produces HALEU, the fuel many advanced reactors need, at its American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. In July it signed the contract finalizing a $900 million Department of Energy task order to move HALEU production at Piketon, Ohio, from demonstration toward commercial operation. NNN covered that award in Centrus signs $900M DOE task order to scale HALEU production. The company expects first new capacity by 2029, with an initial build-out of 12 metric tons of HALEU a year.

Since then Centrus has lined up customers. It signed an LEU and HALEU supply agreement with X-energy (NNN coverage), a long-term partnership to fuel Radiant's Kaleidos microreactors (NNN coverage) and a multi-year contract with Antares Nuclear backed by customer prepayments (NNN coverage). Each of those agreements assumes the Piketon cascades grow on schedule.

For more on why HALEU is scarce and how enrichment, deconversion and fabrication fit together, see NNN's HALEU explainer and the fuel supply chain hub.

What's next

The main things to watch are integration and output. Centrus has not said how much centrifuge hardware Westerman will produce for the expansion, or whether it will add capacity at Westerman's four plants. Its third-quarter results should show the first consolidated numbers, the final working-capital adjustment and the share count issued to the seller.

Centrus also flags the risks in the background: its Piketon lease, the planned expansion projects in Piketon and Oak Ridge, and competition from foreign suppliers. Owning Westerman removes one supplier risk. It does not, on its own, put new centrifuges in the ground before 2029.