Published: March 20, 2008 06:10 pm            

Orange toll compounding facility changing hands

By Ashley Sanders

The Orange Leader



Employees at Orange’s A. Schulman Inc. facility Wednesday were notified that they will be joining a “new family”.

A press release issued Wednesday morning confirmed Alloy Polymers, Inc. has completed acquisition of the local toll compounding facility.

"We are pleased to have A. Schulman join Alloy Polymers' portfolio of market leading customers who have benefited from partnering with us, and we welcome the associates from the Orange, Texas, facility into our family," said Kamini Pahuja, Alloy Polymers chairman of the board, in a prepared statement.

The acquisition positions Alloy Polymers to meet the rising demands of its customers, expanding the company's compounding capacity by more than 100 million pounds and immediately enabling additional service capabilities that include blending, break-bulk repackaging, high-speed bagging, and distribution services.

"Today we take another step in our strategic vision to provide a broad array of services centered on operational excellence. It's about delivering more

than a compounded product to our customer's door," said Charlie Chiappone, president and COO of Alloy Polymers, in a prepared statement issued Wednesday.

The acquisition also bolsters Alloy Polymers' operations in the Gulf Coast. Together with the company's existing Crockett, Texas facility, Alloy Polymers now offers a diversified spectrum of services ranging from engineered polymers to commodity resins, black master batches to sophisticated color products, railcar to bag packaging, and lot sizes from under 5,000 pounds to over 100,000 pounds.

The transaction includes a long-term service agreement with A. Schulman to provide high-quality compounding and related services from Alloy Polymers' North American facilities.

"Working closely with Alloy Polymers for nearly a year now, we have been consistently impressed by their commitment to understanding our business and their development of a comprehensive service solution to address the critical needs of our markets," said Barry Rhodes, A. Schulman executive vice president and COO of North America, in a press release issued Wednesday.

"A big factor in selecting Alloy Polymers over other toll manufacturers was the fact that they do not have a proprietary product line. They are strictly a service provider," Rhodes added.

Alloy Polymers is a U.S. independent plastics compounder headquartered in Richmond, Va. The company, which does not market any of its own proprietary products, has four facilities in Texas, Ohio and Virginia with total capacity in excess of 600 million pounds. Its services support a wide variety of customers in the plastics industry.

        

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