VisiPak purchases rival Flex Products
ARNOLD, MO. — Clear-packaging producer VisiPak has expanded its geographic base with the acquisition of Flex Products LLC.
VisiPak of Arnold will keep Flex Products' Carlstadt, N.J., plant running to gain a bigger footprint in the Northeast. The companies completed the deal in early September for undisclosed terms. Flex Products was owned by a family trust.
“We love [Flex Products'] location,” said Jeff Barket, sales and marketing director for VisiPak's owner, Sinclair & Rush Inc. of Arnold, in a telephone interview. “We've been talking on and off for a year and have been rivals.”
Barket said core competencies of the two firms are similar. VisiPak designs and produces clear plastic packaging using extrusion, thermoforming, injection molding and other fabricating technologies. Its products include clamshells, tubes, transparent boxes, blister packs, plastic trays, jars and vials.
Flex Products extrudes, thermoforms, injection molds and fabricates clear packaging. It runs a 70,000-square-foot building. Barket said each company does about $64 million to $70 million in annual sales.
Both companies will continue to offer decorating, design, contract packaging, assembly and fulfillment services for markets such as cosmetics and medical. Barket said VisiPak will gain four-color offset printing and automated vial assembly.
Denham wins another term in Congress
WASHINGTON — Plastics industry player Jeff Denham easily won election Nov. 6 to a second term as a U.S. representative from a different district.
In unofficial results, Denham, 45, a Republican, received 53.8 percent of the votes cast in the newly reapportioned 10th Congressional District of California. His opponent, Democrat José Hernández, received 46.2 percent.
Records indicate the candidates and their backers may have spent more than $12 million on what became decidedly negative campaigns for the two-year term.
The new 10th district includes Stanislaus County and a portion of San Joaquin County.
Denham and Mike Hutchings co-own Denham Plastics LLC of Salinas, Calif. It sells agriculture and garbage bins, pallets and totes.
An intense July 26 fire damaged a leased storage yard and warehouse unit that Denham Plastics had occupied since 2004. With operations disrupted, Hutchings said, “We are still looking for a good spot” to relocate the business.
In another venture, Denham and his family farm almonds at a ranch in Merced County.
In other plastics-related political news, Dave Spence, former owner of St. Louis blow molder Alpha Packaging Inc., lost his bid to become governor of Missouri.
Corvac enters injection molding with D.A.
DAVISBURG, MICH. — Automotive thermoformer Corvac Composites LLC has made a move into injection molding by acquiring D.A. Inc. of Charlestown, Ind. No purchase price was disclosed.
D.A. employs 13 at a 30,000-square-foot plant, molding covers and interior parts for Toyota Motor Corp. The firm does some thermoforming, but is primarily a custom molder. D.A. was founded in 1989 and was owned by Kojima Press Industry Co. Ltd. of Shimoichiba, Japan.
The acquisition gives Davisburg-based Corvac wheel liner work on the Toyota Sequoia SUV. The Sequoia was one of the few Toyota vehicles Corvac wasn't working on, according to Corvac sales coordinator Jessica Hadley.
Toyota is Corvac's largest customer, Hadley said in a Nov. 9 phone interview, but the firm also is increasing its work with Chrysler Group LLC. Corvac designs and produces wheel arch liners, engine under-covers and aerodynamic under-body shields. The company is owned by Humphrey Cos. LLC, a holding firm in Grandville, Mich., that owns three other industrial manufacturing companies.
Sales at Corvac are in line to total about $50 million in 2012, with 2013 sales expected to be close to $60 million, Hadley said. “Our business is really bouncing back,” she added.
The purchase of D.A. is Corvac's first, but Hadley said the company is looking to make more such deals. Corvac employs a total of 250 at its headquarters and R&D center in Davisburg and at a manufacturing and engineering plant in Byron Center, Mich., and a manufacturing plant in Morgantown, Ky.