CHICAGO — Ductile, gray and specialty iron castings manufacturer Grede Holdings LLC has acquired the assets of Virginia Casting Industries LLC, Radford, Va., and will rename the foundry Grede Radford LLC.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The foundry—Southfield, Mich.-based Grede’s 17th in North America—serves mostly the North American automotive industry and supports many Tier I suppliers. Grede Radford currently employs 170 workers, but 100 more are expected to be added in the next year.

"The addition of Grede Radford to our manufacturing footprint is a perfect complement to our strong automotive portfolio of safety-critical parts, including steering knuckles and lower control arms," Grede chairman, president and chief executive officer Doug Grimm said in a statement.

The transaction marks Grede’s third acquisition in the past year. The company bought Proeza SA de CV’s NovoCast and Teknik foundries in Monterrey, Mexico, last April; in November, it purchased industrial foundry and machining facility Paxton-Mitchell Co., Omaha, Neb., which was renamed Grede Omaha LLC.

That same month, Grede also entered an exclusive agreement with Georg Fischer AG to use the Swiss company’s SiboDur lightweight castings technology in the United States, while Georg Fischer will manufacture on behalf of Grede in Europe and Asia.