Metal Casting & Foundry
Foundries producing iron, steel, and non-ferrous metal castings.
Market snapshot
These figures describe Metal Fabrication & Machining (5.8.11), the segment that Metal Casting & Foundry sits within. They are not figures for Metal Casting & Foundry on its own.
- Market size
- ~$381B
- Growth
- ~7.0%CAGR (2017–22, nominal)
- Companies
- ~44,336 firms
72.3% of firms have fewer than 20 employees: 32,042 micro-businesses, below most mandates.
- 20–99
- 8,88572%
- 100–499
- 2,24918%
- 500+
- 1,1589%
The deepest acquisition pool in the sector: over 44,000 firms, most of them job shops and machine shops holding a handful of customer relationships. Growth outran the sector on steel pricing rather than volume. Buyer diligence turns on customer concentration and whether the owner IS the sales function; both are the usual reason a good shop cannot be sold at a good price.
NAICS 331210, 331221, 331222, 331511, 331512, 331513, 331523, 331524, 331529, 332111, 332112, 332114, 332117, 332119, 332216, 332312, 332313, 332321, 332322, 332323, 332420, 332613, 332618, 332710, 332721, 332996, 332999, 333511. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Statistics of U.S. Businesses; U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census.
Business model & economics
Revenue model
Custom fabrication and contract-machining work
Key economics
- Revenue per firm
- $8,600,266
- Revenue per employee
- $321,078
- Employees per firm
- 26.4
- Recurring revenue
- Moderate
- EBITDA margin
- Job-shop economics; richer for precision/specialty
- Capex intensity
- Moderate
recurring OEM and contract supply
Characteristics
- Scale-driven: payroll is only 19% of revenue, so the cost base is assets, not headcount
- Deep strategic-buyer pool: 1,158 firms exceed 500 employees, so a scaled asset has trade buyers
- Largest, most fragmented manufacturing segment.
- Vast base of job shops and contract fabricators.
- The archetypal PE roll-up arena.
NAICS 331210, 331221, 331222, 331511, 331512, 331513, 331523, 331524, 331529, 332111, 332112, 332114, 332117, 332119, 332216, 332312, 332313, 332321, 332322, 332323, 332420, 332613, 332618, 332710, 332721, 332996, 332999, 333511. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Statistics of U.S. Businesses; U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census.
Geographic concentration
The fabrication belt: Ohio alone holds nearly 2,900 firms at more than twice the national concentration, with Wisconsin and Michigan alongside it. These are job shops that grew up around automotive and heavy equipment and stayed.
U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Statistics of U.S. Businesses (firms by state), NAICS 331210/331221/331222/331511/331512/331513/331523/331524/331529/332111/332112/332114/332117/332119/332216/332312/332313/332321/332322/332323/332420/332613/332618/332710/332721/332996/332999/333511. Concentration shown by location quotient.
M&A deal context
Who’s acquiring
- PE-backed precision-machining platforms
- Metal-fabrication strategics
- Specialty & component consolidators
What’s driving deals
- Roll-up amid generational ownership transition.
- Reshoring and manufacturing-capex demand.
- Automation and precision-machining capability.
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