OKLAHOMA CITY—Maxcess International Corp., a products and services provider for the web handling industry, has agreed to acquire Valley Roller Co.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“The acquisition of Valley Roller Co., our second acquisition in eight months, highlights our continued buy and build market strategy to broaden our one-stop-shop product and service offering,” Maxcess CEO Greg Jehlik said in a news release.
Valley Roller is based in Appleton, Wis., and has a second facility in Mansfield, Texas. It will join Webex, Fife, Tidland and Magpowr under the Maxcess umbrella.
Private equity firm Bertram Capital Management L.L.C. acquired Maxcess about 18 months ago. Bertram owns Webex, a precision roll company, which operated in the web handling space, Jehlik said, and it saw Maxcess as a scalable global platform that could bolster Webex.
He said Bertram pursued its investment in Maxcess in part because the company had a fairly broad product offering in the web handling space on a global platform.
Maxcess has factories and a sales presence in various parts of the world, such as China, Japan, Europe and North America. After Bertram acquired Maxcess, it started reaching out to various companies in the marketplace.
“We sought out Valley because of a variety of different positives and who they were and what they brought to the table to expand the product offering for Maxcess,” Jehlik said.
Valley Roller will expand Maxcess' offerings, the firm said, while adding value to Maxcess' portfolio of web handling solutions. Valley Roller has more than 30 years of experience in the roller business with advanced capabilities in rubber-covered rolls and what it describes as innovative products and world-class service and support.
“We're very committed to new product development and, at any given point, have dozens of projects under development around the world,” Jehlik said. “And that's just part of our strategic makeup and design.”
Maxcess has 965 employees around the world. Acquiring a company such as Valley Roller allows Maxcess to add to its product offerings and capabilities faster, just because of the amount of “feet on the street” it has, Jehlik said.
Maxcess has no plans to eliminate employees from Valley Roller, which currently employs about 70. Valley Roller's two owners, Mike Gist and Mike Chase, will stay with the company; Gist will be general manager of Valley Roller and Chase will be a consultant and technical adviser.
“The product range and the capabilities that Valley Roller brings to the table, Maxcess did not possess ... so for us, this acquisition was not about plant consolidation or closing facilities. It was about adding a product range and a capability to our portfolio,” Jehlik said.
Adding Valley Roller's plants increases the number of Maxcess' facilities to nine in the U.S. The company plans to consider adding roll covering technology at some of its other seven facilities.
“There are a lot of rolls that are used in the converting world, and Valley Roller's recognized as a leader of rubber covers for those rolls,” Gist said.
On the flipside, Webex is recognized as the leader for the cores, the metal portion of that roll.
“We just felt like it was a perfect fit for both our companies to come together to offer complete solution for rolls throughout the converting process,” Gist added. “We're excited about the possibilities of working together, what they're going to bring us, and not only with our existing business, but also for new opportunities it would bring us.”
Maxcess tries to be a one-stop shop for its customers, and adding Valley Roller will extend its ability to do so, Jehlik said.
The companies had some of the same customers, and he believes joining the firms together will make the product portfolio stronger.