Bag maker Mercury Plastics Inc. has a new co-owner and a new name less than a year after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The film extruder based in City of Industry, Calif., now will be known as New Mercury Plastics LLC and will be operated as a joint venture between the Deutsch family and Alpha Industries Inc., part of Sigma Plastics Group of Lyndhurst, N.J.
New Mercury Plastics will maintain its operation in City of Industry, but officials have sold a film plant in Bowling Green, Ky., to a publicly held third party.
``It's a done deal,'' Sigma Chief Executive Officer Alfred Teo said about the plant sale. ``We don't want to comment. We'll leave the press release to them.''
Alpha will own 50 percent of the venture. Teo will serve as chairman and CEO; Benjamin Deutsch as president and chief operating officer; Andrew Teo, chief financial officer; Andrew Deutsch, senior vice president; and Zachary Deutsch, executive vice president of sales and operations.
Day-to-day operations will be conducted in City of Industry, but accounting and purchasing will be centralized in Lyndhurst, Alfred Teo said Feb. 16 by telephone.
The new ownership structure also means capacity additions in Santiago, Chile, and a brand-new plant in Salamanca, Mexico. The new plant will be added to existing property in Salamanca, to allow for the addition of coextrusion, cast film and blown film capacity, Teo said.
Benjamin Deutsch could not be reached for comment. Mercury Plastics started in 1986 when the Deutsch family and Luben Rabchev teamed up to buy the assets from a bank. Mercury officials filed for bankruptcy protection in May after a legal battle with Rabchev, in which Mercury accused Rabchev of starting a new company and siphoning business.