Compounder and materials supplier Chemionics Corp. has a new owner.
Chessco Industries, which owned Tallmadge, Ohio-based Chemionics since 1981, sold the firm to Protech Oxyplast Group, a provider of both powder and liquid metal coatings, in a deal that closed Dec. 1. Financial details were not disclosed.
Protech, with its head office in Montreal, generated $250 million in sales and operates 10 manufacturing sites worldwide. Chemionics General Manager John Blackfan said Protech will help Chemionics grow, especially in the metal coatings industry, with plenty of cross-selling opportunities between the two customer bases.
"Overall, it's exciting," Blackfan said. "There's a lot of overlap in raw materials. We buy a lot of the same PVC resins, plasticizers and heat stabilizers. Right out of the gate, in the first week, Protech salesmen contact me with opportunities for plastisols. We've got a flood of interest from both sides where we already have inroads with our customers and now have additional products we can take to them."
Chemionics is a formulator and compounder of PVC plastisols, natural latex, synthetic latex — polychloroprene and nitrile, as well as water-based adhesives. Blackfan said Chemionics' plastisol capabilities complements Protech's line of PVC powder coatings and will help extend the firm's broad line of metal coatings. Chemionics also has a full line of solvent and water-based primers for plastisol metal coatings.
Blackfan said Protech's primary product lines are thermoplastic and thermoset powder coatings, making Chemionics a perfect fit to enhance its capabilities.
"Chessco wouldn't have sold us to one of our competitors," Blackfan said. "They wanted to make sure we were in good hands with a company who was going to take care of the employees, do the right thing, keep everything here and put the resources behind it to help grow the business."
Founded in 1975, Chemionics relocated from Fair Lawn, N.J., to Tallmadge when Chessco acquired B.F. Goodrich's formulating and compounding plant in 1981, merging the two operations into its current three story, 85,000-square-foot location that sits on 10 acres. The site also operates a research and development/quality control lab.
The firm employs about 31, all of whom Blackfan said are transferring in the deal, and generated about $20 million in sales in 2017. The PVC/plastisols business accounted for 60 percent and the other 40 percent of sales came from its natural and synthetic latex and water-based adhesives business.