Big numbers and frequent buyers filled the plastics M&A market in the first half of 2022.
• SyBridge Technologies LP of Southfield, Mich., announced four plastics deals, including two that closed in late 2021. The firm bought plastics tooling firms Lakeshore Fixture & Gauge Ltd. in Canada and Action Mold and Machining Inc. The Action purchase includes its tooling unit, Action Tooling LLC, both in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Action launched in 1997, repairing plastic injection molds and tooling. It then added new plastic injection and die-cast injection molds to its offerings using metal additive manufacturing. Action also has custom injection molding, with seven presses.
Lakeshore, based in Tecumseh near Windsor, Ontario, gives SyBridge in-house ability to design, manufacture, certify and repair fixtures, gauges and end-of-arm tooling.
SyBridge also acquired Advantage Engineering Inc. of Windsor to offer online quoting for digital rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing as well as bridge tooling.
SyBridge's fourth recent deal was for Fitchburg, Mass.-based Wachusett Precision Tool Inc. to expand its customer base and footprint in the life sciences and consumer markets. Founded in 2016, WPT produces prototype, pilot and production molds for medical and consumer packaging customers.
SyBridge now has made 11 acquisitions since its inception in 2019.
• Medical and health care packaging maker Comar LLC made two acquisitions, including one announced in the last week of 2021. Voorhees, N.J.-based Comar purchased Omega Packaging, a La Mirada, Calif.-based injection and blow molder that serves the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, sports nutrition and skin care markets. Omega, founded in 2012, makes closures and jars and has in-house toolmaking.
Comar also acquired Wicklow, Ireland-based injection molder Automatic Plastics Ltd., expanding the company internationally for the first time. APL, designs, develops, molds and assembles medical devices and rigid pharmaceutical packaging at a facility that houses 30 injection molding machines.
"As part of our global vision, we believe it is critical to have a presence in Europe to better serve our medical and pharmaceutical customers, many of whom have global reach," Comar CEO Mike Ruggieri said.
• Plastic Components Inc. — the Germantown, Wis., injection molder that has made Plastics News' Best Places to Work list for eight consecutive years — was acquired by Rosti Group AB of Malmö, Sweden.
PCI makes engineered parts for the medical, plumbing, pool and aquatics, small engine and automotive markets. PCI CEO and President Derrill Rice said that Rosti shares PCI's vision for scientific molding and innovation, such as PCI's patented lights-out manufacturing design that allows it to run a facility 24/7 without human operators.
Rosti, a contract injection molder founded in 1944, has eight plants in Europe and Asia. It serves the packaging, medical, automotive and consumer goods industries. Morgenthaler Private Equity of Cleveland had owned PCI since 2017. Rice said MPE has a typical investment horizon of five years, "and we are now at that five-year mark."