RapidPurge, an Essex, Conn.-based purging compound business, has a new owner.
Rapid Industries Inc., an investment firm in Westfield, N.J., announced July 8 it had purchased the assets of Cross Western LLC, a holding company owned by Layton Kinney and the former owner of the RapidPurge brand.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
RapidPurge offers a vast portfolio of purging compounds, including chemical and mechanical grades, powder concentrates and custom blends. The company said its purging compounds are universally applicable to all thermoplastic resins and can be used in injection molding, extrusion and blow molding applications.
Rapid Industries' Joseph Serell, a 15-year plastics veteran, will oversee all aspects of the business going forward as president and CEO.
"In the past ownership, the focus was really on … updating manufacturing, so now we're highly automated, where before the past owner purchased a very manual operation," Serell said in a July 8 phone interview with Plastics News.
Serell has a background in sales and marketing, where he also gained experience in building a brand and a business. He most recently served as president and chief operating officer for Asaclean purging compound manufacturer and distributor Sun Plastech Inc., part of the Asahi Kasei Group.
"Our new focus now is going to be on sales, marketing and product development, which is the other area that they didn't spend a lot of time on before. We're already moving forward aggressively with new product development and so we're hoping that we will be, again, innovators in the industry," he said.
The company is also in the final stages of development on two new products — a mechanical purging compound and a chemical purging compound — though Serell declined to provide additional details at this time.
"RapidPurge was the first purging compound in the industry. It basically created the industry," Serell said of the business. "It's been around since 1979, so the product is celebrating its 40th year. I think that's pretty significant."