Sweden's Rosti buys Wisconsin-based PCI to build global platform

Plastic Components Inc. is changing hands for the second time in five years.

The Germantown, Wis., injection molder, which has made Plastics News' Best Places to Work list for eight consecutive years, now is owned 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 in a Jan. 4 email interview 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 Germany, England, Poland, Romania, Turkey, China and Malaysia. It serves the packaging, medical, automotive and consumer goods industries.

The company opened a 3D additive printing lab in Boston last year to offer prototypes with a 72-hour turnaround. Rosti has been searching for a U.S. partner for about three years, Rice said.

That lab, as well as the PCI purchase, are part of Rosti's efforts to broaden its U.S. customer base. That plan should work out well for both companies, Rice said. PCI customers' responses have been "overwhelmingly positive," he added.

"We have multinational customers asking us for solutions in Asia and Europe. Rosti has multinational customers asking for solutions in North America. We envisioned significant customer synergies with PCI's addition to the Rosti global footprint. And those expectations have been reinforced with feedback from our customer communications this week," Rice said.

PCI employees, who have known a sale was imminent, also expressed positive feedback at meetings this week, saying that being part of a global company gives them a feeling of security, according to Rice.

The company's current leadership, including Rice, will stay with PCI, he said.

"Rosti recognizes the value of our culture, the value of our entire leadership team and the value of every associate in the organization," he added.

Being consistently named one of the best places to work in plastics processing didn't hurt, Rice noted.

"It adds significant credibility to our focus on our talent — the No. 1 differentiating factor in the success of a manufacturing company," he said.

Satisfaction among the 80-plus employees stretched across this administration of the company as well as the last. PCI's previous CEO, Tom Duffey, in 1989 helped launch the company, which also won PN's Processor of the Year award in 2008 and the 2014 Sustained Excellence award.

Duffey sold the company in 2017 to Morgenthaler Private Equity, also known as MPE Partners, of Cleveland. Rice said MPE has a typical investment horizon of five years, "and we are now at that five-year mark."

MPE and PCI "went through a robust exploration of potential buyers … to support our continued growth."

The process was led by Stout Investment Banking of Chicago, acting as financial adviser, and Baker & Hostetler LLP of Cleveland, serving as legal adviser to MPE and PCI.

PCI has made its own acquisitions in recent years, including Sports Molding LLC (now SMI Molding Inc.) of Clearfield, Utah, in August, and Syracuse Plastics of North Carolina Inc. of Cary, N.C., in 2019. Those facilities are included in Rosti's purchase.

"We recently formed a companywide automation engineering team led from the center with resources at each acquired location to accelerate automation across all platforms," Rice said. "Our mission is to make our plants safer, to be ergonomically best in class and to ensure efficient use of floor space all through technology."