A new joint venture will create the nation's largest composites materials distributor, effective April 1.
GLS Corp. and Cook Composites & Polymers are creating a venture with 1999 sales projected to exceed $420 million. The venture will supply more than 7,000 customers with composite fabrication/cast polymers from 30 distribution centers.
The new firm, known as Composites One, will top the sales of the industry's other big player, Dublin, Ohio-based FRP Supply Division of Ashland Chemical Co.
Composites One will include the Arlington Heights, Ill.-based GLS Composites Distribution Corp. and two CCP entities, CMI/Composite Materials Inc. of Santa Fe Springs, Calif., and RP Associates of Bristol, R.I.
GLS, also of Arlington Heights, and CCP of Kansas City, Mo., are establishing Composites One as a 50-50 joint venture. Each of the firms has participated in the industry's rampant consolidation and cost cutting in recent years.
GLS Composites' executive Steve Dehmlow will become chief executive officer of Composites One. In a news release, he said the venture will deliver the ``scope and operating economies of scale expected from a truly national distributor'' while maintaining the existing firms' ``fast-response, service-intense orientation.''
RP's Patrick Mouligne will be president; GLS' Leon Garoufalis will be chief operating officer.
The venture excludes Progress Plastics of Mississauga, Ontario. CCP, part of Paris-based Total SA's chemical division, owns a majority of the Canadian operation.