Alfa Inorganics was originally founded in 1962 by Alfred Bader, in a 50:50 venture between Aldrich Chemicals and Metal Hydrides Inc.[3] The purpose was to provide a source of inorganic research chemicals to sit alongside the organic chemicals of Bader's other company: Aldrich Chemicals. It was created to market inorganics, organometallics, and others such as organoboron and organoarsenic reagents. Following the amalgamation of Aldrich and the Sigma Chemical Co, the joint venture was terminated with Alfa reverting to Metal Hydrides ownership (later Ventron, later again Thiokol). In the USA the business was branded as Alfa, and sold only inorganics. In Europe, the business was branded as Alfa-Ventron (to distinguish it from the UK company Alfa Chemicals) and also later sold a limited range of organic chemicals sourced from Lancaster Synthesis. The European sales office was in Karlsruhe, Germany. The USA and European operations used different (though similar) catalogues, with completely different product number sequences and appear to have been run with a high degree of independence from each other. Thiokol eventually tired of the non-mainstream business and sold it to Aesar, who closed the USA site and relocated the business to the Aesar location.