Penda Corp. has acquired Tri-Glas Corp., an Alabama manufacturer of fiberglass accessories for pickup trucks, vans and sport utility vehicles. Penda, based in Portage, Wis., will run the fiberglass business as an independent subsidiary, to be called Tri-Glas Industries, according to Mark Holmes, Penda's vice president of sales and marketing.
Tri-Glas, a 14-year-old firm, has been owned since 1988 by holding company VMC Fiberglas Products Inc.
VMC officials were unavailable for comment. Tri-Glas was their only holding, and Holmes did not know whether VMC would dissolve after completing the deal, which closed July 14. Terms were undisclosed.
Last year, Holmes said, Penda reaped sales of roughly $68 million. That business is split between its pickup truck bedliners, which the company thermoforms from high density poly-ethylene sheet at its Portage plant, and its distribution of truck accessories, such as rubber bed mats, acrylic hood protectors and plastic cargo trays. Tri-Glas Corp.'s product lines will expand Penda's current market.
Last year Tri-Glas' sales were about $17 million, he said.
In Daleville, Ala., Tri-Glas employs about 250 making such fiberglass products as aftermarket running boards and truck caps, and sleeper cabs, which it sells directly to heavy-duty truck manufacturers.
Tri-Glas President Robert Ostendorf will continue to head that operation.
Penda, which serves both carmakers and the aftermarket, plans to introduce Tri-Glas accessories that thus far have been strictly aftermarket products to original equipment makers as well. And the company is looking for other accessories to add to its product lines, Holmes said, either through other acquisitions or internal development.
``We want to keep the door open,'' he said.
In March 1994, an investor group bought Penda's bedliner business for more than $100 million. Penda claims to be the largest maker of pickup truck bedliners sold to automakers, supply-ing Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Corp. and Toyota Motor Manufacturing USA, among others. It employs 373 at its 250,000-square-foot Portage plant.
