Custom Profile buying profile business from Bemis Manufacturing

Custom Profile Inc. is buying the plastics profile extrusion business of Bemis Manufacturing Co. and opening a new plant to house the additional business.

Walker, Mich.-based Custom Profile expects sales to increase by about 25 percent through the deal, which will help the company move into new business categories including medical and automotive.

“It's just really a great opportunity for us,” said John Boeschenstein, CEO at Custom Profile. “One, it strengthens our market share of certain customers who are like customers. In addition, it gets us into some new markets. ... We have never been in the medical field before. It gives us a chance to grow into that market and show the industry what we are capable of doing.”

Bemis Manufacturing, of Sheboygan Falls, Wis., is well known for making toilet seats among its wide variety of products. But the company decided to sell off its profile extrusion business.

A broker contacted Custom Profile in February and talks began, Boeschenstein said.

“We found that it was an extremely good fit on both sides. Bemis' No. 1 concern was the customers,” the CEO said, adding the company also “wanted to ensure that their people were taken care of.”

Impacted employees are being given the opportunity to move to Custom Profile in the Grand Rapids, Mich., area or be absorbed into other Bemis positions, Boeschenstein said.

A total of 12 manufacturing lines will be relocated from Bemis to Custom Molding. Ten of those lines will go into a newly leased 75,000-square-foot building in Grand Rapids. This facility is separate from the company's current manufacturing site in Walker, about seven miles away.

“It will give us a chance to locate the Bemis equipment specifically into that new facility. ... Plant one is running extremely well. We won't have to worry about disrupting what we're currently doing,” Boeschenstein said.

Custom Profile will expand its existing business in areas such as office furniture and venture into automotive with the manufacture of products including precision clips for seats and battery covers, cable protectors and “highly engineered profiles.”

The other two lines, the medical portion of the acquired business, will relocate to Custom Profile's Juarez, Mexico, facility.

The switch to Grand Rapids will begin in December and be completed by March as lines move and start running again.

Each medical line will move individually during the second quarter of next year to Juarez to ensure that production is not interrupted.

The medical lines, Boeschenstein explained, are duplicative and allow production to continue in Sheboygan while work to build a clean room and start production in Juarez takes place. Once everything is running smoothly there, the second line will be relocated.

A key in the medical side of the deal is a product called a burette used in IVs.

“At no time we won't have the ability to continue to make the product at Bemis or make the product in Juarez,” he said.

“That gives the customer some reassurance that we're going to use the exact same equipment, exactly the same process, exactly the same materials, exactly the same tooling so they know the quality of the product they get today is going to be duplicated,” he said.

Locating that portion of the business to Juarez, where Custom Profile has space, make sense because that facility will be closer to existing major customers in Puerto Rico and Costa Rica. And while Custom Profile has not been in the medical field before, the CEO said the company can tap into existing expertise to run the business.

“Our Juarez facility is an extremely, highly technical facility down there,” he said.

Custom Profile expects the deal to create about 30 jobs, including 25 direct hires, in the Grand Rapids area and about 15 jobs, including 12 direct hires, in Juarez, Boeschenstein said.

The company currently employs about 200 in Michigan and 100 in Mexico. While details of the deal were not announced, Custom Profile did say the transaction will increase sales by about 25 percent.

“It's an opportunity and it fits into our long-term plan to grow the business. We've done it all organically up until this point. We would anticipate additional organic growth, especially in the medical field,” Boeschenstein said.

Custom Profile ranked 78th in Plastics News' most recent survey of North American pipe, profile and tubing extruders, with sales of $33.4 million. Bemis ranked in a tie for 101st with estimated sales of $21 million.