CHICAGO — Night light and switch plate supplier American Tack & Hardware Co. Inc. is buying a competitor, Home Equipment Manufacturing Co., which gives AmerTac a position in outdoor security lighting.
Both companies source most of their plastic components from Taiwan and China.
AmerTac is a subsidiary of AmerTac Holdings, which is owned by AmerTac management and Heritage Partners Inc., a Boston venture capital firm. Heritage financed a 1996 management buyout of the family-owned firm.
AmerTac is based in Monsey, N.Y. Home Equipment, known as Hemco, is based in Westminster, Calif.
The deal was announced Aug. 8, two days before the National Hardware Show in Chicago. The companies had separate exhibits at the McCormick Place show.
AmerTac makes Style brand decorative switch plates and night lights, selling them to major home center and mass retail chains.
Many of AmerTac's products are aimed at children.
Hemco also makes night lights. Hemco also markets a range of photoelectric lights — lights that automatically come on at dusk, then go off again in the morning. Bill Neveling, Hemco's national sales manager, said the night light parts are molded by suppliers in Taiwan and China.
Hemco sources plastic components for its photoelectric lights from a U.S. injection molder, Magic Plastics Inc. of Santa Clarita, Calif. Neveling, interviewed at the Hardware Show, said the photoelectric lights are assembled at Hemco's headquarters factory in California.
At the Hardware Show held Aug. 10-13 in Chicago, AmerTac introduced matching wall plates for children to go with its Forever-Glo Nite Lites, which are cool to the touch. Themes for the combination packs include Boy's All Star, Girl's All Star and Cow Over the Moon. They are hand-painted with nontoxic paint.