Barnes Group Inc. will acquire Italian hot runner maker Thermoplay SpA, as the company continues to build a larger hot-runner business that already includes Synventive and Otto Männer.
Barnes, which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange, announced July 23 that is entered into an agreement to buy private held Thermoplay.
Thermoplay is based in Pont-Saint-Martin, Italy, and makes hot runners mainly for packaging, automotive and medical markets.
Barnes, which is headquartered in Bristol, Conn., will buy 100 percent of Thermoplay for 50 million euros ($55 million), paid for with cash and borrowings from its revolving credit facility.
Thermoplay will operate as a business unit within Barnes Group's Industrial segment.
Barnes, a company founded in 1857, does precision machining and fabrication of components for aerospace, industrial and automotive markets. Barnes got into the plastics hot runner business in 2012 when it purchased Synventive Molding Solutions Group of Peabody, Mass. The following year, Barnes bought Otto Männer GmbH of Bahlingen, Germany. Both Synventive and Otto Männer have manufacturing operations in several countries. Barnes paid more than $300 million for each of the two companies.
Thermoplay is a smaller company, but Barnes said it has technical service capabilities in China, India, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Portugal and Brazil.
Thermoplay has annual sales of about 35 million euros ($38.5 million) and employs more than 200.
“This acquisition represents an excellent opportunity for us to further expand our service offerings to the plastic injection molding industry,” said Patrick Dempsey, Barnes' president and CEO, in a statement. “Thermoplay allows us to increase our presence in favorable end markets, leverage the many differentiated technologies we offer in this area, and further globalize our plastic injection mold and hot runner manufacturing capabilities.”
In 2013 Plastics News story, Dempsey said Barnes planned to use Synventive as a platform for more acquisitions to build a plastics-related business.
