Oakmont, Pa.-based Chelsea Building Products Inc. has essentially been acting as a toll manufacturer for the Everlast Polymeric Cladding System for seven years but not anymore.
Chelsea acquired all the assets for Everlast — a PVC composite siding that it helped develop — from Beloit, Wis.-based American Builders and Contractors Supply Co.
A privately held company, ABC Supply had bought Everlast not quite a year ago as part of its Norandex Building Materials Distribution Inc. acquisition from a subsidiary of Cie. de Saint-Gobain.
Terms of the deal between ABC Supply and Chelsea weren't disclosed except that it gives Chelsea the brand and distribution rights for Everlast products, which includes siding and trim made of PVC and inorganic mineral filler. Until now, Everlast distribution had been exclusively restricted to Hudson, Ohio-based Norandex.
“We acquired the other half of the relationship so to speak,” Chelsea Vice President of Sales and Marketing Gary Hartman said in a telephone interview. “We own it all now. The product, intellectual property [IP], branding, marketing rights, trademarks and patents all fall under Chelsea Building Products.”
The company, which is the No. 51 pipe, profile and tubing producer in North America with PPT sales of $68 million, according to Plastics News' latest rankings, now wants the marketplace to know about its role in developing Everlast.
Hartman described the siding as a product with “a bunch of good things going on.” Everlast's solid but lightweight planks have an acrylic cap for color and weathering that set it apart from the competition, he said.
“It has a unique installation system. It's not painted. Its cap stocked,” Hartman added. “We're producing the color on line as the product is extruded.”
The siding comes in 14 colors backed with transferrable lifetime performance warranty against hail and termite damage and cracking, delaminating, peeling, flaking and blistering.
“The acquisition of this successful composite siding line will allow us to continue to invest in product development and expand the Everlast offerings,” Chelsea President and CEO Peter Dewil said in a press release.
Chelsea's involvement with developing Everlast started years ago when Norandex was owned by Owens Corning Corp., which was trying to come up with a composite siding made with fiberglass.
“Long story short, fiberglass is just nasty. It didn't work really well,” Hartman said.
Then, Norandex was sold to Saint-Gobain, the French parent of CertainTeed Corp, in a $371 million deal in 2007. CertainTeed took over the siding project but couldn't make it work either, Hartman said. In the meantime, Chelsea continued to work on it but changed direction.
“We shifted our efforts away from fiberglass and moved toward the inorganic fillers,” Hartman said. “We came up with a technical solution and went back to them. Norandex said yes, we want to commercialize this project so Norandex owned the IP and the marketing and we owned the profile design and the material. We basically became a toll manufacturer for Norandex.”
Chelsea always saw great opportunity for Everlast, Hartman said, and eventually approached Norandex about acquiring the IP and marketing rights but then it was sold to ABC Supply.
“We introduced ourselves to ABC. We told them our story,” Hartman said. “ABC really wanted more of a traditional supplier-customer relationship and so they agreed with our plans and intentions to not only control manufacturing of the product but the branding and marketing as well.”
ABC Supply will continue to be a customer of Chelsea and buy Everlast to distribute through its 600 locations.
“This enables us to set up our own distribution as well,” Hartman said. “ABC will be a major part of the strategy but now we can go out and sell other distributors this product throughout the country.”
While PVC composite siding is still in the development phase for many competitors, Chelsea has a tried-and-true product, Hartman added.
“We really believe we have the best solution,” he said. “We've got thousands and thousands of squares of product in the marketplace. Homeowners are satisfied and now we're going to do our ta-da. People will know this best solution is coming from Chelsea Building Products.”
The business has been designing and extruding PVC and composite profiles for the building materials market since 1975. The integrated manufacturer also offers material development, extrusion tool technology and finished products for manufacturers and distributors throughout North America.
“We've been doing these things for 41 years for a lot of other people and now we're letting the marketplace know,” Hartman said.