Starrett

PE-owned since June 2024. MiddleGround Capital, an industrial buyout firm out of Lexington, Kentucky, took the company private at $16.19 per share after a 63 percent premium bid, ending 37 years on the NYSE. The Starrett family ran this company for five generations. That ended in February 2025 when Douglas Starrett stepped down after 48 years and a former Bosch Tool executive took over as CEO.

Downgraded from Approved 2026-07-05. The trigger we set for this brand fired. MiddleGround Capital took Starrett private in June 2024. Within a year the new owner replaced the entire executive suite. On June 30, 2025 the company cut 179 jobs, 78 of them in Athol, and quality assurance was among the departments cut. The layoff was large enough that the Department of Labor issued a dislocated worker grant for the region. A reader reports receiving an out-of-square combination square in 2024 and getting double-charged for it. That is one anecdote, and the combination square is the product Laroy Starrett built this company on in 1880. Athol stays open and most production stays in the US for now, which keeps this at Watchlist.