UPDATED: Film and sheet extruder Transilwrap Co. Inc. has bought the specialty films business of Dow Chemical Co. for an undisclosed price.
The deal includes production plants in Hebron, Ohio, and Drusenheim, France, which employ a total of 130. The business makes films based on polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene for numerous medical and packaging applications such as beverage closer liners, ostomy bags, window envelope films, labels and protective fabrics.
The Dow unit's brand names include Saranex, Procite and Opticite.
In an April 1 phone interview, Transilwrap executive Ron Wesel said his firm hadn't competed with Dow's films unit, and that in fact the two businesses have worked together for almost 50 years. During that time, Dow has been a supplier of window envelope film to Transilwrap, and Transilwrap distributed ostomy bag films for Dow.
The acquisition “gives us film technology and allows us to expand into health care, which we're very excited about, and also makes us more global” added Wesel, who serves as Transilwrap's senior vice president of sales and marketing.
Transilwrap President and CEO Andy Brewer added that his company will remain on the lookout for more acquisitions. “Acquisition has been a core part of our strategy for the last several years and will continue to be in the future,” Brewer said in a phone interview
It's the sixth acquisition in nine years for Franklin Park, Ill.-based Transilwrap. Most recently, the firm in June 2015 bought packaging distributor Ellis Industrial Packaging of Cardiff, Wales. In March 2015, Transilwrap bought printable plastic film maker Clear Focus Imaging of Santa Rosa, Calif.
An industry source told Plastics News that after the Dow deal is completed, Transilwrap will have annual sales of around $450 million and will employ more than 800 at 15 sites.
A spokeswoman for Midland, Mich.-based Dow said in an April 1 email that the sale “allows Dow to release cash from a non-core, yet valuable business and focus on advancing our strategy growth agenda and remunerating shareholders.
“Dow believes the business will thrive and reach its full potential under a different ownership structure,” she added.
Transilwrap was founded in 1931 as the Transparent Sylvania Wrapping Paper Co., one of the first converters and distributors of film in the plastics industry. The firm initially focused on food wrap applications. In the 1960s and 1970s, the company built a thermal laminating film business and in 1981 expanded into film extrusion.
In the 1990s, Transilwrap added liquid coating and pilot line development. Other services offered by the firm include slitting, sheeting, magnetic striping, security and specialty printing.
Chicago-based private equity firm Nicolet Capital Partners LLC bought a stake in Transilwrap in 2007. The firm then in 2013 was acquired by private equity firm Jordan Co. of New York.
Dow is in the midst of a mega-merger with DuPont Co. that would create a global plastics and chemicals firm with more than $80 billion in annual sales. If the merger is completed, the combined company then would be split into three separate public companies, including one focused on materials.
Activist investor Third Point LLC has been pressuring Dow to sell off non-core assets.