By Michael Lauzon
CORRESPONDENT
Published: June 24, 2014 2:50 pm ET
Updated: June 24, 2014 4:22 pm ET
Image By: Toledo Molding & Die Inc.
Automotive parts molder Toledo Molding & Die Inc. has expanded its blow molding business by acquiring WEK Industries Inc., a former Myers Industries Inc. company.
Toledo paid about $19.5 million for WEK in a deal announced June 24. WEK had sales of $36 million last year, mostly in custom blow-molded auto parts and assemblies, although it also molds custom and proprietary products for other sectors. WEK, with headquarters and blow molding operations in Jefferson, Ohio, also runs a blow-molding plant in Reidsville, N.C.
Toledo Molding has its headquarters and testing laboratory in Toledo, Ohio, and also runs a technology center in that city that houses its prototyping and tool design and build capabilities. It does blow molding in Bowling Green, Ohio, and Tiffin, Ohio. Tiffin also contains injection molding activities as does a plant in Delphos, Ohio. Another Toledo operation does cockpit assembly and sequencing.
“We are excited to support our platform investment in (Toledo Molding & Die) with the strategic acquisition of WEK,” noted Adam Gottlieb, senior managing director of Industrial Opportunity Partners, the Evanston, Ill., private equity owner of Toledo Molding. “We believe TMD is positioned for growth both internally and through strategic acquisitions such as WEK. WEK represents TMD’s first acquisition since (Industrial Opportunity Partners) invested in TMD in 2011.”
Toledo Molding produces and assembles thermoplastic parts for interior cockpit modules and air and fluid management components. It has about 1,500 employees. On its website it states its injection presses have clamps from 15 to 3,300 tons. Its blow-molding machines for polyolefins and thermoplastic elastomers can run shot sizes of 5 to 25 pounds in up to 70-inch part length.
The acquisition expands Toledo Molding’s customer base at a time when the automotive industry is doing well, opined IOP Chairman and operating principal Jim Todd, in a news release.
Myers Industries sold WEK to concentrate on its core businesses. It will use the sale proceeds to partly pay for its upcoming $165 million purchase of Scepter, a Toronto-based fuel tank blow molder and materials handling products injection molder. Myers said it expects to complete the acquisition in early July.
WEK was part of Myers’ engineered products segment, which has disappeared in a realignment to reduce Myers’ reporting segments to two from four. Myers now has a material handling segment and a distribution segment. The material handling segment includes operations that were already under that umbrella and the Ameri-Kart fuel tank business that was formerly part of engineered products. Scepter will be added to the material handling segment.
Myer first announced the Scepter purchase agreement on June 2, the same day it said it is looking for a buyer of its lawn and garden segment, a process that could take up to a year. | 
