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Zekelman Industries is a Canadian company owned by the Zekelman family, including billionaires Barry, Clayton, and Alan Zekelman. They own Atlas Tube, a steel tubing manufacturer in Canada and the US.[1]
Atlas Tube was founded in 1984 by Harry Zekelman. A majority stake was sold to the Carlyle Group in 2006 for $1.5 billion CND.[2]
In 2006–2008, the Carlyle Group purchased John Maneely Co (founded in 1877) for $550 million,[3] then purchased Atlas Tube, and Sharon Tube (founded in 1929), forming them into JMC Steel Group under DBO Holdings. Carlyle and Zekelman nearly sold them to Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) for $3.5 billion in 2008, but the deal fell through in late 2008, with DBO/Carlyle suing NLMK for breach of contract.[3][4][2][5][6] DBO/Carlyle and NLMK settled their lawsuit in 2009, with NLMK paying $234 million.[7]
Picoma became part of JMC in 2009. Carlyle sold a majority stake to the Zekelman family in 2011.[3] The company name was changed to Zekelman Industries in 2016.
Zekelman subsidiaries and locations include:[8]
- Atlas Tube, Chicago, Illinois; Plymouth, Michigan; Blytheville, Arkansas; Harrow, Ontario; and Oak Bluff, Manitoba; naming of the Atlas Tube Centre
- Hayes Modular, Austin, Texas
- Picoma, Cambridge, Ohio
- Sharon Tube, Farrell, Pennsylvania and Niles, Ohio
- Western Tube, Long Beach, California, acquired in 2017
- Wheatland Tube (created as a subsidiary of John Maneely Co in 1931), Sharon, Pennsylvania and Wheatland, Pennsylvania
- Z Modular, based in Chicago; also Birmingham, Alabama; Killeen, Texas; Chandler, Arizona; and Kitchener, Ontario, created in 2016
Zekelman Industries provides steel tubing to the US-Mexico border wall.[9] A Zekelman Industries subsidiary, Wheatland Tube, donated $1.75 million to the America First Action super-PAC to elect Donald Trump, a financial maneuver considered questionable for a foreign citizen.[9][10] Barry Zekelman dined with Donald Trump at a private Trump Hotel DC dinner by America First Action. Zekelman lobbied Trump regarding steel tariffs, the border wall, and trucking regulations.[10]
As a foreign business executive trying to buy influence through spending on American elections, the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint against Zekelman with the Federal Election Commission in 2019. In April 2022, the F. E C. fined Zekelman $975,000 in the case, one of the biggest penalties it has ever assessed.[11]
Barry Zekelman owns a million-dollar cigarette boat named Man of Steel.[9][2] He also has owned several superyachts named Man of Steel; he previously owned a 2005 36.8 m (121 ft) Heesen 3700 named Man of Steel. He replaced this with a steel-hulled 50 m (160 ft) Heesen in 2008, the largest they had built at the time. It was sold and renamed Inception.[12] The third "Man of Steel" superyacht was an aluminum-hulled 49.8 m (163 ft) Heesen purchased by Zekelman in 2019; it was previously named the Satori and then the Septimus.[13][14] A third boat, described as a lake boat, is also named Man of Steel.[9][2] In October 2021, it was confirmed that Zekelman was the purchaser of Steven Spielberg's former 282 ft yacht Seven Seas, built by Oceanco in 2010, which he renamed Man of Steel.
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