Deland, FL - ARC Group Worldwide, Inc., a provider of advanced manufacturing and 3D printing solutions, announced it has closed on the acquisition of two companies, Advance Tooling Concepts ("ATC") and Thixoforming LLC ("Thixoforming"). ATC is a plastic injection molder, offering complete, turnkey plastic injection molding capabilities, as well as fully-staffed and equipped in-house molding and tooling expertise to customers in high growth markets including the medical device, electronic, consumer, and defense industries. Thixoforming is a provider of magnesium injection molding, producing complex, high-density injection molding components from magnesium alloys.
With the addition of ATC and Thixoforming, ARC has materially strengthened its leading suite of advanced manufacturing, 3D printing, and associated tooling capabilities. ARC's new tooling, plastic injection molding, and magnesium injection molding capabilities further accelerate the adoption of ARC's advanced manufacturing and 3D printing services, as ARC aims to become a holistic solution provider for its customer base. Further, both ATC and Thixoforming provide ARC with significant new customer bases, enabling cross-selling opportunities across the full suite of ARC products and services.
ATC, founded in Longmont, CO in 1999, is a leader in high quality plastic injection molding and specialized tool making, offering a wide variety of products and services including a state-of-the-art tool room, automated molding operations, and a Class 100,000 medical clean room. The company offers a highly flexible product portfolio that is customized for its customers' unique needs, with products varying from prototype parts through low- to high-volume production. Because ATC is currently a top supplier to ARC for metal injection molding tooling, the acquisition will reduce ARC tooling lead times and costs through vertical integration and will shorten the 'time to market' for ARC customers. ATC generated revenues of more than $17 million in 2013 and is ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 13485 certified.
Thixoforming, founded in 1997, is located adjacent to ARC's Colorado metal injection molding business, Advanced Forming Technology ("AFT"). Thixoforming is a leader in magnesium injection molding. Thixoforming's capabilities combine the design and processing flexibility of plastic injection molding with the strength of high-pressure diecasting. Thixoforming's process produces complex shaped components with high dimensional precision, fine detail, and overall light weight. Thixoforming further rounds out ARC's injection molding suite of services and adds further capacity to the Company's leading position in the injection molding industry. Similar to ATC, Thixoforming also adds an additional customer base for ARC's 3DMT division to which it can offer rapid prototyping and short run production services.
ARC acquired ATC for $24 million, in an all-cash transaction. Terms of the Thixoforming acquisition were not disclosed. Brean Capital, LLC acted as ARC's exclusive financial advisor.
"ARC's acquisition of ATC and Thixoforming provide a strategic fit within our calculated growth plan. The companies add key capabilities, and accelerate our goal of being a holistic solutions provider for our customer base - from product development, to prototyping, to low- to high-volume production. Further, in-house tooling enables ARC to reduce its lead time, and help our customers get to market quicker, a key focus of our strategy," said Jason T. Young, Chairman and CEO of ARC. "On a combined basis, these acquisitions add meaningful cash flow to ARC, and we expect them to be immediately accretive to our earnings. They also bring a diverse, loyal customer base that is expected to provide material cross-selling opportunities for both our advanced manufacturing and 3D printing services. We continue to evaluate a number of external growth opportunities, while at the same time developing internal growth channels, including our online instant quoting software currently under development."
