One Rock Capital Partners LLC has acquired thermoset materials maker Prefere Resins for an undisclosed price.
Los Angeles and New York-based One Rock is buying Prefere from Silverfleet Capital of London. Prefere is a global producer of phenolic, urea and melamine resins based in Erkner, Germany.
Silverfleet had owned Prefere since 2018. In 2019, Prefere acquired the melamines business of Ineos Group.
The Erkner site has been used for plastics production since 1910. It was acquired by Funk Chemie Group in 1992 and went through several name changes and owners before becoming Prefere. Today, Prefere employs more than 600 at 15 global sites with annual production of more than one billion pounds of materials. Markets served by Prefere include construction, insulation and coatings.
In a news release, officials said that Prefere "has an excellent pipeline of new and exciting environmentally attractive products as well as excellent ESG credentials."
Prefere "is a high-quality business with very strong management," Silverfleet partner Benjamin Hubner said in the release. "The company's strong resilience, paired with a track record of continuously delivering on its plans, have made the implementation of our strategic value creation plan a rewarding experience over the past four years."
Prefere CEO Elmar Boeke added that "with the support of Silverfleet, we were able to execute an ambitious growth strategy that included investments into our product portfolio, our operations as well as M&A."
One Rock has owned a majority stake in plastics materials distributor Nexeo Plastics since 2019. In the first half of 2021, One Rock's GPD unit, including Nexeo, made three deals. It first acquired European distributor Distrupol, which sells more than 4,000 grades of material to more than 1,300 customers in 13 countries.
One Rock/GPD followed the Distrupol deal with Nexeo's acquisition of Nevicolor SpA, a resin distributor and compounder based in Luzzara, Italy. Distrupol then acquired resin distributor Lautrup Chemicals A/S of Denmark.