Fast-growing Westfall Technik Inc. has made another acquisition, buying Amaray's North American operations, including two injection molding factories, in Pittsfield, Mass., and Elizabethtown, Ky.
Westfall Technik announced the deal Oct. 5. Terms were not disclosed.
Amaray is a major U.S. molder of media packaging for CDs, DVDs and video games, a market that remains its largest business. That market has declined as consumers increasingly get their music and movies streamed online, and the company has moved to diversify into medical, personal care, consumer goods, and food and beverage.
Westfall Technik said Amaray will work closely with Westfall management and its other portfolio companies to drive molding work to its two plants, providing more production capacity and differentiated capabilities to customers. Westfall plans to upgrade and invest in the Amaray plants, the company said in a news release announcing the deal.
Westfall Technik said Amaray's U.S. plants employ about 165 and run 66 injection molding machines, with clamping forces from 80-650 tons. The molder has a total of 285,000 square feet of manufacturing space.
Amaray had sales of $49 million in its most recent full year, according to the Plastics News injection molders ranking.
Westfall bought Amaray from Connecticut investment firm Atlas Holdings LLC. Atlas continues to own Amaray's European plants as part of its ASG packaging business.
The deal gives Westfall Technik its first plant in the Midwest, a core U.S. plastics manufacturing region.
"When we look at acquisitions, we look at it from a standpoint of market segment and geographic," Shaffer said in a telephone interview. Elizabethtown will be used to supply a growing customer base in the Midwest, Westfall said.
Chandler, Ariz.-based Westfall Technik has targeted plastics processors serving medical, consumer packaging and consumer goods, especially ones that have high-cavitation tooling, rapid tooling and prototyping and other strengths, Shaffer said.
Buying Amaray also beefs up Westfall Technik's consumer packaging area.
In a statement, Jim Berklas, Westfall's head of mergers and acquisitions, said: "The acquisition of Amaray U.S. — our eighth in the past 12 months — is a major step forward in our plan to acquire plastic injection molding businesses in strategically important industries and geographies across the value chain."
Shaffer said Amaray's expertise in media packages — high-volume, highly automated production — translates into other markets as well while the company diversifies.
Continued from Page
