Polymer Transaction Advisors Inc., a financial consulting firm based in Newbury, Ohio, has established partnerships with an Ohio accounting company and a German financial adviser.
PTA will work with Barnes Wendling CPAs Inc. of Cleveland to provide accounting-based assistance to plastics firms looking to get involved in the mergers and acquisitions market.
``From our perspective, we can benefit from [PTA President Bill Ridenour's] extensive experience and contacts in the polymer industry,'' said Kevin Durst, Barnes Wendling's principal of corporate finance. ``We already have a number of plastics clients in the Cleveland area, so we're familiar with the market.''
The German firm is Frankfurt-based Turnpoint GmbH, which offers the same type of advisory and consulting service in Europe that PTA provides. PTA and Turnpoint already have worked together for several years on an informal basis, Turnpoint Managing Director Wolf Ostwald said in a news release.
``Working with Barnes Wendling enables us to provide our plastics clients with a full line of corporate financial services,'' Ridenour said. ``And through our partnership with Turnpoint, we can offer midmarket companies and even larger firms the international reach they're looking for.''
Since its formation in 1999, PTA has been involved in a number of plastics industry deals, including the public offering of Canadian concentrates maker ReBase Products Inc. and the sale of 35 gas-assist molding patents to Bauer Compressors Inc. of Norfolk, Va.
Currently, PTA is working on eight M&A projects with firms ranging in size from $5 million to more than $100 million in annual sales, said Ridenour, who has almost 30 years of experience in plastics and specialty chemicals markets. That list of projects includes injection molders, sheet extruders and compounders.
The number of deals in the 2005 North American M&A market was down slightly from 2004, but pricing of companies involved in those deals remained steady, according to Ridenour. Working with Turpoint also could help in this area, since European companies investing in North America currently can increase multiples used in determining sales prices by 1-2 percent, Ridenour said.
