Market veteran Ubhi takes flight with Peacock deal

A 93-year-old materials firm has a new owner in industry veteran Andy Ubhi.

In October Ubhi bought Peacock Colors Inc. of Addison, Ill., from owners Cliff Bloom and Greg Cherry. Bloom and Cherry are grandsons of Frank Bloom Sr., who founded the firm as paint and ink maker Rainbow Ink in 1925.

Rainbow Ink changed its name to Peacock Colors in 1962 and entered the plastics market in 1967 when it bought colorants and additives maker Homer Palmer. Peacock began making plastics color concentrates in 1994.

Today, Peacock employs 27 at a 25,000-square-foot site, making color concentrates based on a wide variety of commodity and engineering resins, as well as liquid color, dry color and color beads. The firm has hundreds of customers and can supply material in sizes ranging from a few pounds to truckloads.

Ubhi has more than 20 years of industry experience, including positions with GE Plastics, Asahi Kasei Plastics and Dow Corning/Multibase. Most recently he was with Kraton Polymers before leaving in 2012 to pursue investment opportunities.

"I had done some good things for a few different big companies, but wanted to do something on my own," Ubhi said in a recent phone interview. "Product color is driven by customer [and] OEM specification. Peacock wants to work with customers on new applications to grow their business through color innovation."

Ubhi worked on the acquisition with Polymer Transaction Advisors Inc. of Foxfire, N.C. He first met with Peacock's owners in 2013, then pursued two other deals. When those deals did not work out, Ubhi returned to Peacock and negotiated the sale.

Since making the acquisition, Ubhi has invested $100,000 in Peacock for renovations and a lab expansion. He's also hired industry veterans Peter Ducato as Americas sales manager and Ed Pedersen as technical account manager.

Previous owners Cherry and Bloom will remain with the firm, with Cherry as sales manager and Bloom in a consulting role. Randy Stadtfeld also will remain in an important role as technology director, Ubhi said.

Ubhi declined to provide sales or production data for Peacock, but said sales for 2018 are expected to grow 10-12 percent through innovation and an increased sales effort. Ubhi identified food and packaging, appliances, automotive, caps and closures, two-shot soft touch and consumer products as markets for Peacock

He added he'd like to grow sales in higher-end applications such as medical applications and water filtration applications, with new products in the pipeline. New innovations at Peacock include an Omni anti-microbial masterbatch that kills germs on contact, and a masterbatch additive for laser marking and printing.

No current end market accounts for more than 10 percent of Peacock's annual sales, Ubhi said. He added that, in the future, he'd like to look for more acquisitions, possibly in the compounding sector.