MEXICO CITY - Miami-based Commercial Plastics & Supply Corp., a producer and distributor of plastic film, sheet and tube, has acquired Mexican supplier Bodega de Plasticos SA. The January takeover makes Commercial Plastics the biggest plastics distributor in the Mexican capital, according to the U.S. company. The cost of the purchase was not disclosed.
Bodega de Plasticos operates an over-the-counter sales center in Mexico City, offering acrylics, polycarbonates, magnetic tapes and nylon. It also offers cutting and small fabrication services, Commercial Plastics said.
Commercial Plastics, which opened a full sales/service center north of Mexico City in 1993, runs a network of 78 units in North and South America, Europe and the Caribbean. Its five specialty divisions include transportation, security, architectural, graphic film and engineering plastics.
Santiago Ponce was named director general of Commercial Plastics Mexico. He will head the enlarged Mexico City operations.
Commercial Plastics declined to provide details on the deal, beyond its brief announcement. Richard Bilello, sales vice president, would not comment on the company's reasons for the takeover, business prospects or its plans south of the border.
New company offers softwre, seminars
HAMILTON, ONTARIO - A new company in Canada offers polymer processing simulation software and related computer-aided and polymer-rheology services and seminars.
Polydynamics Inc. of Hamilton was formed by John Vlachopoulos, professor of chemical engineering at McMaster University's Center for Advanced Polymer Processing and Design, also in Hamilton.
Polydynamics jointly holds licenses for simulation software with Compuplast International Inc. of the Czech Republic. Vlachopoulos said in a telephone interview that Polydynamics holds distribution rights for the software in North America and Asia, and Compuplast holds such rights in Europe.
Vlachopoulos said recent commercial contracts included die design for extrusion, blow molding and thermoforming.
Hoechst AG, Mitsui to make cyclo-olefins
IWAKUNI, JAPAN - Hoechst AG of Frankfurt, Germany, and Mitsui Petrochemical Industries Ltd. of Tokyo are joining forces to use metallocene catalysts developed by Hoechst to produce cyclo-olefin copolymers at a Mitsui facility in Iwakuni.
The companies plan to produce 6.6 million pounds of cyclo-olefin resins a year.
Cyclo-olefins are amorphous thermoplastics the firms say have high transparency, low birefringence, good heat stability and good chemical resistance and moisture barrier properties.
The materials can be used for optical and data storage products or, in blends with other polymers, for automotive or electrical products.
Separately, the Advanced Ma-terials Group of Hoechst Celanese Corp. of Summit, N.J., announced it has acquired rights to nonaqueous dispersion polymerization technology from Imperial Chemical Industries plc that Hoechst plans to use to produce its Vectra line of liquid crystal polymers.
IAPD forwards plan to ASTM committee
LEAWOOD, KAN. - The International Association of Plastics Distributors Standards Committee approved a draft of new standards for nylon 6/6 sheet, rod, plate and tubular bar products, and sent the draft to the ASTM Committee on Plastic Products.
The draft will be considered by Philadelphia-based ASTM's Committee D20.20.02, and approval is expected within a year.
When it is approved, it will supersede all other ASTM, federal and military standards for nylon 6/6 products.
IAPD's Standards Committee separately is drafting specifications for homopolymer and copolymer acetal rod, sheet tubular bar and plate products, polycarbonate bar and slab and cast nylon 6 rod, plate and tubular bar products.
Carbide, EniChem fo form joint venture
MILAN, ITALY - Directors of Union Carbide Corp. of Danbury, Conn., and EniChem SpA of Milan have approved the firms' European joint venture - Polimeri Europa Srl of Milan.
The joint venture will be owned equally by Union Carbide and EniChem, and will combine EniChem's production and research and development facilities in Italy, Germany and France with Union Carbide's gas-phase process to produce polyethylene resins for European markets.
The venture is subject to approval by European regulatory agencies.
Briefly...
Mix Head Rebuilding of Holland, Mich., has moved to a new, larger plant in Holland. The firm repairs mix heads for reaction injection molding. The address is: 897-45 S. Washington St., Holland, Mich. 49423; tel. (616) 394-0191, fax (616) 394-9711.
Specialty Minerals plans to spend $18 million to expand capacity for precipitated calcium carbonate at its Adams, Mass., facility. The material is used to add impact strength to PVC siding, windows and pipe, and in the sealants and food industries. The expansion is scheduled for completion late this year.
Compression Engineering, which offers product-development services such as computer-aided engineering, has moved to a new headquarters within Indianapolis. The 35,000-square-foot building houses operations that formerly were at two locations. The firm also has received a $2.3 million venture capital investment to fund its growth plans. Additionally, it recently opened a new-product development center in Laguna, Calif.
George Smith Marketing Services of Simi Valley, Calif., recently moved to new offices with a showroom and training center for the equipment the company represents. The 3,800-square-foot facility will house two Newbury injection molding presses, one horizontal and one vertical, and one Sandretto press. The training center is to be ready in March and will have a 50-seat classroom with computer video linkup to the molding equipment computer monitors.
NC-ESM International Inc. of Houston has appointed Tex America Inc. of Charlotte, N.C., as its representative in the Southeast for its line of optical sorting equipment for plastics.
Stratasys Inc., an Eden Prairie, Minn., maker of rapid prototyping systems, has bought the rapid prototyping technology developed by IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., including patents and prototype machines.
