WireCo WorldGroup (formerly Wire Rope Corporation of America) is a privately owned company that claims to be the world's largest manufacturer of wire rope.[1]
J.P. Barclay, Sr. founded the company in 1931 as a spin-off of the New Haven, Connecticut-based Wire Machinery Corporation of America. In 1950 it moved its headquarters to St. Joseph, Missouri where its main operations had been since 1948.[2]
It acquired the wire rope division of A.H. Leschen & Sons of St. Louis, Missouri in 1962; the Armco Steel wire rope division in 1988; the Rochester Corporation wire rope division in 1998; the Broderick Bascom Rope Company and MacWhyte Wire Rope Company of Wisconsin in 1999; the Aceros Camesa in Mexico in 2005; entered into a joint agreement with Wuhan Iron and Steel in China in 2006; Wireline Works of Canada in 2007; CASAR in 2007 and Phillystran in 2009.[3]
In 2002 the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. KPS Special Situations acquired the company for $53 million in assumed debt and $1.5 million in cash.
Fox Paine & Company bought the company in 2007[2] Later that year the company moved its headquarters to the former Farmland Industries headquarters on the site of the Red Crown Tourist Court by Kansas City International Airport.[4] The company was renamed Wireco Worldgroup in October 2007 and ownership was transferred to Paine & Partners. In the summer of 2015, the company moved its headquarters to Prairie Village, Kansas.[5] The company sold a majority stake to a Toronto-based private equity fund, Onex Corporation in June 2016.[6] In January 2020, the company appointed Keith White as chief executive officer.[7]