Kingspan has agreed to acquire 100 per cent of BMC Manufacturing Group for up to €900 million, a deal that gives the Irish building materials group direct manufacturing capacity in low-voltage switchgear and critical power-management equipment just as AI-driven data centre construction accelerates demand for that infrastructure worldwide.

Kingspan will pay €850 million upfront, split between €600 million in cash and €250 million in new shares, with up to a further €50 million in deferred consideration contingent on profit targets; the transaction is expected to complete in the fourth quarter of 2026 with BMC's existing management remaining in place.

BMC Manufacturing, founded by Brendan Meehan in Ashbourne, Co Meath, in 1991, designs, engineers and manufactures low-voltage switchgear and critical power-management solutions for the data centre industry. Turnover and pretax profit quadrupled in two years to €105 million and €22.5 million respectively, with staff numbers trebling to 212, and turnover is forecast to more than double again this year to €280 million.

Kingspan is a Cavan-based building materials group whose Advnsys division supplies critical infrastructure for hyperscale and colocation data centres, including power modules, cooling and containment systems, generating €1.66 billion in revenue in 2025.

Gene Murtagh, chief executive of Kingspan, said the acquisition supports the group's strategy to evolve its data offering towards converged power, cooling and containment solutions, and that combining BMC's technology with Advnsys' hyperscaler relationships positions the group to meet what he called accelerating global data-centre demand.

The deal reflects a structural push by building materials groups to vertically integrate power-management manufacturing as AI-driven data centre construction reshapes demand for critical infrastructure.

The timing reflects the scale of the opportunity, with global data centre infrastructure spending projected to exceed $1.7 trillion by 2030, driving sustained demand for switchgear, power distribution and cooling equipment manufacturers.

For the sector, the deal shows an Irish construction supplier accelerating into a global data centre component manufacturer, backing plans for a US production facility as almost 70 per cent of turnover now comes from outside Ireland.

The wider signal for Irish manufacturing is that power-management and switchgear producers serving hyperscale data centres are becoming prime acquisition targets, with Kingspan retaining roughly €1 billion in headroom to pursue further deals.

Source: The Irish Times