Updated: Parkway Products LLC acquired two facilities from Injection Technology Corp. to expand its large-tonnage thermoplastic injection molding capacity.
Greenville, S.C.-based Parkway bought the plants and equipment in Westminster, S.C., and Arden, N.C., from Injection Technology Corp. founder and CEO Carl Morris, who is retiring.
Terms were not disclosed.
The deal had been in the works since 2016, Parkway CEO Al Ridilla said in a phone interview.
“We take really great care and we use the carpenter's rule, but instead of measuring twice and cutting once, we measure five times because we don't want to waste any wood,” Ridilla said.
Itech measured up, he added.
“This is a great business founded in 1987 by Carl, who is an innovator in the plastics industry. He has done some incredible things with tooling innovations and structures,” Ridilla said. “We had our eye on Carl and his team. We've always had a good relationship between Parkway and Itech in South Carolina. If they needed help or we did, our folks would drive over and help.”
Itech's two facilities in the Carolinas round out Parkway's geographic presence in the Southeast, increases its available press clamp tonnage greater than 1,000 tons, and boosts its regional capacity. Parkway is growing with its customers.
“We're blessed to establish strong relationships with good customers,” Ridilla said.
Parkway plans to align the new facilities with its thermoplastic molding centers in Greeneville, Tenn.; Seneca, S.C.; and Marietta, Ga. For example, the Westminster and Seneca plants are only 6 miles apart.
“Those two plants will be conjoined in many ways,” Ridilla said. “With the tonnage range, there's not a lot of overlap between those plants. To put the assets and capabilities of what we have in Seneca and now what we have in Westminster into one building would present a managerial oversight challenge. But 6 miles away from each other, we can structure them as independent businesses, yet share best practices and all the operating disciplines to make those two businesses work together, learn from each other and get better in the process.”
Parkway also has thermoplastic injection molding plants in Fort Collins, Colo., and Saltillo, Mexico. Two Colorado plants are only 4 miles apart.
“We're able to leverage capacity and operations talent, salespeople and quality talent within driving distance,” Ridilla said.
Founded in 1946, Parkway serves the infrastructure, industrial, aerospace, electronics, automotive, agriculture off-road vehicle, truck and health care markets with 750 employees.
Intech customers mostly are in the infrastructure, agriculture, off road, industrial and consumer end markets and some electronics and consumer business.
This deal expands Parkway's North American footprint to 11 operations with seven focused on thermoplastic injection molding. The company now has 262 molding machines, including 192 thermoplastic injection machines in the tonnage range of 17 to 1,750 tons.
In addition, Parkway offer high performance polymers, magnesium thixomolding, composite polymer molding, and paint and laser etch.