Injection molder Seaway Plastics Engineering L.L.C. has acquired MME Group Inc., a contract manufacturer with two plants in Vadnais Heights, Minn., a suburb of St. Paul.
The purchase, announced Oct. 26, comes just four months after Seaway itself was acquired by the New York-based North American Direct Private Equity unit of Intermediate Capital Group plc of London. ICG said at the time that it expected to grow Seaway geographically and cited Southern California, the Upper Midwest and the Southeast as potential expansion targets.
MME becomes a Seaway subsidiary known as MME Group L.L.C. It employs 175 and has 110,000 square feet of manufacturing space between its two plants, including a 30,000-square-foot clean room area.
Founded in 1974, MME injection molds plastics and liquid silicone rubber, and offers insert molding, two-shot rotational molding, in-house tool building and turn-key assembly. It makes products and parts mainly for the medical and consumer markets.
MME was owned by Bob Archambault, who was president and CEO. Seaway told Plastics News that Archambault is retiring.
Financial terms of the MME acquisition, which closed Sept. 30, were not disclosed.
Seaway was founded in 1984. It has two plants, in Port Richey and Brooksville, Fla., and its Wright Engineered Plastics subsidiary, which it acquired in 2020, is in Santa Rosa, Calif. Seaway serves the medical device, health care, aerospace/defense and specialty industrial markets. When ICG purchased Seaway in June, Seaway had more than 250 employees and 54 injection molding machines with clamping forces of up to 950 tons.
"When we acquired Seaway, a crucial part of our investment thesis was to seek out strategic acquisitions, particularly those focused on the large and growing medical device end market," Kevin Gregory, health care sector lead for the ICG private equity unit, said in a news release. "We are thrilled to execute on this strategy, as the addition of MME leaves … the Seaway team well-positioned to grow both organically and through additional acquisitions."
