Tubing maker Busada Manufacturing sold after 72 years in same family

Busada Manufacturing Corp., a Louisa, Va., company that specializes in extruding clear cellulose acetate butyrate tubing, has a new owner.

The family that founded the company sold Busada Manufacturing to Kris Good on Oct 6, 2023. Terms were not disclosed.

Good bought the company as an individual buyer, but he is also the CEO of Good Transport Services Inc. in Columbia, Pa.

Busada Manufacturing was founded in 1951 by John Busada, who started the company with one extruder in a rented garage in Maspeth, N.Y., after stints at GE Plastics, the U.S. Navy, Northern Industrial Chemical Co. and Omni Products Corp.

The company makes butyrate tubing and pipe of all different shapes, lengths and diameters, including food-grade products.

John Busada built a factory in Louisa in 1972 and moved the entire business there in 1987, according to a 2017 profile in Plastics Engineering magazine.

Busada, who died from COVID-19 in 2020 at age 102, retired from the business in the early 2000s. In recent years, it was owned and run by his son Charles Busada and daughter Jean Jones.

Generational Equity, a mergers and acquisition adviser for privately held businesses, advised Busada on the sale to Good. The purchase marked General Equality's 166th transaction of 2023.

Dan Bernstein, an affiliate of Generational Equity, said the sale was due to a retirement situation and it was important to the previous owner that Busada stayed in Louisa "to support the community there and the people who work for them."

The specific tubing that the company makes is referred to in the community as "Busada tubing," and Good liked that the company came with a lot of name recognition.

"Kris wanted to acquire a company that had that legacy and the reputation, which they have: a great reputation," Bernstein said.

Busada has one facility, five extruders and about eight employees. The facility also has a full-service thermoplastic fabrication department and can work on multiple types of thermoplastic prototypes for custom tubing.

"I know that the real estate was nice because they have the ability to double the capacity of the facility," Bernstein said. "I'm not sure what Kris' plans are, but I think Busada is going to do well in the future."

Good did not respond to questions from Plastics News.