Braidy Industries is an

Ashland, Kentucky Ashland is a List of cities in Kentucky, home rule-class city in Boyd County, Kentucky, United States. The most populous city in Boyd County, Ashland is located upon the southern bank of the Ohio River at the state border with Ohio and near West ...

-based company, planning to become an aluminum alloys manufacturer providing aluminum for the automotive and the food and beverage industries. In October 2020 Braidy Industries announced that it was changing its name to Unity Aluminum.

Subsidiaries

Braidy Industries, Inc. owned Braidy Atlas, a start-up that designed and engineered the first aluminum rolling mill in the United States in nearly 40 years. It also held Veloxint, an

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

incubated technology company, and NanoAL, a

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

incubated technology company. The assets of Braidy Industries were sold to Steel Dynamics in 2022, which announced the mill will be built in Mississippi. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/steel-dynamics-announces-planned-state-of-the-art-aluminum-flat-rolled-mill-site-selection-301666912.html

History

Braidy Industries was founded by Craig T. Bouchard who wanted to create eco-friendly aluminum alloys, and named after one of his daughters. The industry demand was bending towards stronger and lighter materials and the company was founded to accommodate the market gap created by this generational shift. Braidy Industries started off with an initial project of a fully integrated aluminum rolling mill in the

Greenup County, Kentucky Greenup County is a county located along the Ohio River in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 35,962. The county was founded in 1803 and named in honor of Christopher Greenup. Its c ...

, comprising a 2.5 million square-foot area. The site, relocated to neighboring

Boyd County, Kentucky Boyd County is a County (United States), county located in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. Commonwealth of Kentucky. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 48,261. The county seat is Catlettsburg, Kentucky, Cat ...

is located in Eastern Kentucky and the facility costs were estimated to be around $1.6 billion. The site for the mill is located near the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

and the

CSX railroad CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of track, it is the lead ...

, as well as

I-64 Interstate 64 (I-64) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the Eastern United States. Its western terminus is at I-70, U.S. Route 40 (US 40), and US 61 in Wentzville, Missouri. Its eastern terminus is at the Bowers Hill ...

, which connects the site to various automotive plants within 300 miles around the region. This advantage allows the site to utilize the just-in-time approach. The company is working with the Ashland Alliance and the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) as a part of the Kentucky Business Investment program based on which they received up to $10 million in tax incentives.

Joint venture with RUSAL

In April 2019 Braidy announced a joint project with RUSAL, a Russian aluminum company partially owned by the oligarch

Oleg Deripaska Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska (; born 2 January 1968) is a Russian oligarch and billionaire. Deripaska began his career as a metals trader after the breakup of the Soviet Union. He used accumulated funds from trading to acquire stakes in the Sa ...

. The project is to develop the mill site in Ashland, Kentucky "to produce flat-rolled aluminum products for the U.S. automotive industry," according to a company press release.

Founder

Bouchard litigated to remove the directors in January 2020. A third-party firm was hired by the directors involved in the Delaware litigation to conduct a review. Bouchard litigated the claims in the Delaware Chancery Court, and the claims were then dropped. Foster stepped in as acting president and CEO. The company announced it had amicably settled the lawsuit and repurchased Bouchard's shares for $6 million.

2020 pandemic

During the 2020

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, the company received between $1 million and $2 million in federally backed small business loans from Community Trust Bank as part of the Paycheck Protection Program. They stated it would help them retain 65 employees.

References

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External links

Official website
Manufacturing companies of the United States Companies based in Kentucky Ashland, Kentucky