Six months after being sold to a new platform company, American Plastic Toys Inc. is closing a plant in Olive Branch, Miss.
Scott Campbell, vice president of administration at Orchard Creek Capital LLC, confirmed to Plastics News that the Olive Branch plant is closing, and the equipment is being sold. The company did not respond to other questions by deadline.
The Walled Lake, Mich.-based toy molder was acquired by Northville Plastics Inc., a new platform company headed by Jon Carlson, on Feb. 16.
Orchard Creek is a Northville, Mich.-based private equity firm that has acquired five plastics companies since 2018.
American Plastic Toys was founded by the Littleton and Yoquelet families in 1962. The company has about 200 employees and 45 injection presses, with plants in Walled Lake; Rose City, Mich.; and Olive Branch.
Equipment including 12 injection molding machines will be sold in an Aug. 13 auction. The presses range in size from 309-950 tons of clamping force.
When the company was sold in February, officials said it had been struggling to regain market share that it had lost since the pandemic.
The Olive Branch factory was APT's largest. The plant had 475,000 square feet of space and Walled Lake has 375,000 square feet. The plant did molding and assembly and was also one of the company's two primary distribution centers.
All of the company plants operate three shifts and warehouse toys throughout the year for the busy Christmas season.
Orchard Creek's other plastics businesses are Classic Die Inc. in Grand Rapids, Mich.; Tool Technology Corp. in Inman, S.C.; Advantage Plastics of New York Inc. in Winter Haven, Fla.; and Action Molding Inc. of Grand Rapids.