Kickstart: Prepping for growth at Medline

Medical supplier Medline Industries Inc. may be setting itself up for some big changes in the near future.

The company, based in the Chicago suburb of Northfield, Ill., was the subject of a $34 billion acquisition deal — led by private equity groups Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman — just three years ago.

Now it is tripling its office space at Chicago's Merchandise Mart complex while industry watchers say the private equity owners are looking at taking Medline public in 2025 in an initial public offering that could be worth $50 billion.

Medline makes drug delivery devices, oxygen masks, tubing and a range of other health care products.

Bloomberg reported earlier this year that an IPO would be timed to take advantage of "better-than-expected performance" at Medline.

The new contract for Merchandise Mart office space in downtown Chicago is a long-term lease for 160,000 square feet, up from the 50,000 square feet it has occupied there since 2021, our sister paper Crain's Chicago Business writes.

The food storage industry is in transition, and while plastics still top the list for materials used in kitchen ware, it's facing challenges from glass amid more demands for sustainability.

Tupperware Brands Corp.'s bankruptcy filing on Sept. 17 isn't necessarily the equivalent of a canary in a coal mine when it comes to plastic storage containers, since the company has struggled with a high debt level and a heritage marketing and sales system that failed to keep up with consumers. But it does indicate a shifting marketplace as consumers seek out alternatives.

ResearchAndMarkets.com issued a report earlier this year noting that food storage represented a $36 billion industry in 2023. It forecasts an annual growth rate of 2.67 percent between 2023 and 2029. But perhaps more importantly, it found that 70 percent of Gen Z consumers are willing to pay more for containers they consider more sustainable, leading to rising popularity for glass.

But don't count out plastics. That's why Pall Musaev, who purchased the Mr. Lid brand of reusable polypropylene containers from Sussex IM in 2023, is stressing reusability and the low carbon footprint of PP, PN's Jim Johnson writes.

Expanding broadband internet access to rural areas is complicated. Expanding it to remote areas of Alaska seems almost impossible.

An Ohio company has come up with a way to make the process a bit easier, though, relying on urethane as part of the solution.

"There are only three ways to move fiber [optic data cables]," Robert Centa, CEO of PMI Industries of Brooklyn Heights, told Dan Shingler of our sister paper Crain's Cleveland Business. "One is through the air, another is in the ground and the third is underwater."

Stringing overhead cables throughout the Alaskan wilderness wasn't practical, Shingler writes. Permafrost makes burying cable impossible. That leaves the rivers that already are a big part of transportation routes. Enter PMI and its stainless steel housings for cable connectors that are filled with protective urethane.

"It's just a level of robustness that, quite frankly, we don't think exists out there," Centa said.