UPDATED — Oneida Molded Plastics LLC of Oneida, N.Y., has acquired Austro Mold Inc. with plans to expand into new markets and benefit from the technology of the Rochester, N.Y.-based company.
In business since 1964, Oneida is a thermoplastic injection molder and mold maker for brand owners in the sporting goods, health care, power generation and electronics industries. The company has 180 employees and 34 injection molding machines ranging from 35 to 700 tons of clamping force at its 90,000-square-foot plant in Oneida.
The company has sales of $20 million, which should be boosted to $24 million to $25 million with the Austro businesses, Oneida President Joe Kiah said in an email.
Oneida has some overlap with Austro, also a custom injection molder and mold maker, when it comes to health care and electronics. But the acquired business also serves the military and filtration industries. Founded in 1976, Austro has 25 injection molding machines up to 500 tons at its 40,000-square-foot plant.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Austro was privately owned by Nathu and Rahul Dandora since 1996. Kiah said in the email that 35 Austro employees will remain on staff and production will continue in Rochester for now, and then migrate to Oneida over the next year or so. Many key Austro employees will be offered relocation, Kiah said.
The transaction makes sense for both companies, Kiah explained in an April 7 news release.
“Austro's reputation, technology and customer base will all be very helpful to Oneida's growth going forward,” he said.
Kiah added in an email that Austro customers will benefit from OMP's engineering depth, state-of-the-art software and equipment.
Austro's website says it currently supplies a number of blue-chip customers in the businesses of digital media, consumer electronics, automotive and mainframe computers. The customer list includes Delphi Automotive, Eastman Kodak Co., IBM Corp. and Xerox Corp.
Molding Business Services of Florence, Mass., advised Austro on the sale, which marks its fourth merger-and-acquisition transaction so far this year and MBS's 67th since 1998.
The deal represents another example of a private equity firm investing in the plastics processing sector.
Oneida Molded Plastics LLC was created in 2006 when an investor group, including founding investors of Berry Plastics in 1991, acquired the assets of the former ORC Plastics Division of Reunion Industries Inc. At the time, Oneida had three plants in New York and one in North Carolina.
The investors included private equity firm Laud Collier & Co. LLC of Chatham, N.J., Argosy Investment Partners of Wayne, Pa., and Family Capital Growth Partners of Greenwich, Conn.
Laud Collier and Family Growth partners are no longer part of the ownership. Argosy owns the vast majority of OMP, and management owns a small share, Kiah said.
In 2007, the New York properties were consolidated into the Oneida facility and in 2012 the North Carolina operation was sold to Engineered Plastics Components Inc.