ALPHARETTA, Ga.—Private equity firm of Kohlberg & Co. L.L.C. has acquired Pexco L.L.C. and merged it with its PPC Industries Inc. business to form Spectrum Plastics Group.
Terms of the transaction, which was announced May 8, were not disclosed by Alpharetta-based Kohlberg, nor Odyssey Investment Partners, which had been Pexco's private equity owner since 2012.
The newly formed Spectrum Plastics Group is offering thermoplastic and silicone tubing extrusion, injection molding, packaging and assembly at 20 manufacturing plants in five countries with more than 2,000 employees.
Fifteen of the plants will make up the medical side of the business while the other five—four extrusion operations and one packaging facility—are geared toward the industrial sector, Matt Robida, vice president of business development, said in an email.
Pexco and PPC Industries will retain their brands for industrial profile extrusion and industrial packaging, respectively.
By combining the related capabilities of the health care businesses, like Pexco Medical and PPC's Kelpac Medical, Spectrum will offer a wide range of services for the medical device sector.
"There are few companies out there in the medical device supply chain that now offer the complete range that Spectrum Plastics Group does," Robida said. "From high-volume fluid management tubing to precision microbore and catheter extrusions, and from assembly and value-add services to advanced injection molding, including bioabsorbable manufacturing capabilities, all the way to silicone and finished device manufacturing, Spectrum Plastics Group now offers quite a range for our customers and medical device OEMs."
The group will be unique in terms of its resources and stability for today's medical market, Robida added.
"We're seeing a lot of dynamism and volatility in the market, with consolidation at the large med device OEM level in particular that is filtering down into the supply base," he explained. "The stability, scale and range of technologies that Spectrum Plastics Group will bring to the medical market lines up well with these emerging, dynamic demands of the sector and ultimately our customers."
Spectrum's new CEO, Neil Shillingford, had been CEO of Pexco L.L.C., which also was based in Alpharetta. Shillingford said in a news release that the close of the deal marked the launch of a comprehensive new company. The new Spectrum Plastics Group brand will be formally launched at the Medical Design & Manufacturing show in New York June 13-15.
The Spectrum name came from a Minneapolis-based injection molder that the Pexco portfolio brand acquired in 2013. Robida said both Pexco and PPC Industries were once high-volume extrusion companies that kept rounding out their specialty medical plastics and material manufacturing capabilities.
Before the Spectrum deal, Pexco had acquired Scandia Plastics in 2012 and Precision Extrusion Inc. in 2015, the latter of which allowed Pexco to get into the advanced, tight tolerance extrusion and catheter space.
Kelpac had completed transactions with Apollo Medical Extrusion in 2014, a microbore extruder, and more recently VitalMed Inc. and Xeridiem Medical Devices in 2016.
Spectrum Plastics Group will continue to pursue mergers and acquisitions to supplement current capabilities, Robida added.
"We still this view this as a key component to our overall business strategy and have several relationships in development," he said.