What Goes Round Comes Round in the Minting Industry

The start of 2024 has been marked by a series of acquisitions in the minting community.

First off was the announcement that the Mint of Finland has sold its blanks business to the German producer Freiberger EuroMetall. The transaction includes the blank factory in Halsbrücke, Germany and its stake in the Spanish blank manufacturer Compañía Europea de Cospeles SA (CECOSA).

The on-going projects for the supply of coins and coin blanks to various customer will be completed by Mint of Finland as planned and agreed with each customer, it said. But in future, it will tender for the blanks needed for its circulation coin business.

The move will, it added, enable it to focus on the sale of circulating coins and related services from one site, at Vantaa in Finland.

The wheel has now come full circle. The Mint of Finland bought what was then Saxonia Eurocoin, the largest blank manufacturer in Europe, back in 2011. Two years later, the original Saxonia owners set up Freiberger EuroMetall just down the road from Halsbrücke in Freiberg. And now they are back to owning their original company again.

Shortly after came the news that precious metal manufacturer Heimerle + Meule has acquired all shares in the Swiss company Reischauer, which produces blanks for collectors coins, medals and investment products.

According to the Group, the acquisition enables Heimerle + Meule to further expand its value chain in precious metals processing and further cements its position in the European precious metals market.

To cap it all, Heimerle + Meule then announced the acquisition of the Royal United Mint from the Belgian Heylen Group, which is the world’s second largest private industrial holding company in the production of coins.

The acquisition includes the Royal Dutch Mint, which has been producing Dutch coins since 1567 and has developed into one of the largest coin manufacturers in Europe, with customers among more than 60 central banks for circulation coins. It is also a leading producer of commemorative coins, tokens and investment coins made of precious metals. Originally owned by the Dutch government, it was sold to the Heylen Group in 2016.

The acquisition also includes Dutch Value Logistics (storage and logistics for value products), the Belgian company Tool & Dies (a manufacturer of tools for the metal processing industry) and the blank, precious metal coin and medal producer Osborne Coinage, the oldest private mint in the USA which was acquired by Royal United Mint last year (see CN April 2023).

‘We have made the Royal United Mint Group a globally significant and profitable provider of official monetary coins, collector and investment coins and tokens. We are delighted to have found the ideal new shareholder in the Heimerle + Meule Group, which will continue this successful development,’ said Vincent Van Hecke, CEO of Royal United Mint, and of the Royal Dutch Mint.

Royal United Mint’s token business Mauquoy Token Company, which also includes the Belgian companies VistaMint, National Tokens and Royal Blanking, has been spun off into a separate independent company to supply tokens, blanks and souvenir coins.

The Heimerle + Meule Group, which represents the precious metal processing division within the Lübeck-based Possehl Group, has become one of the key players in the precious metal sector. It entered the coin business in 2013 with the takeover of the Cookson Group, including the shares of the Spanish coin blank producer Sempsa among others, and acquired a majority stake in the UK’s Commonwealth Mint in 2022. And, as above, it has just acquired Reischauer too.

‘The latest acquisition of the Royal United Mint with the two long- standing companies of the Royal Dutch Mint and Osborne Coinage is a further milestone for the Heimerle + Meule Group on its path to becoming a global key player in the coin business and thus underscores the long-term buy-and-build process’, said the company.