After nearly three straight weeks of relative calmness on the merger & acquisition front, the past seven days have been M&A mania as several of ID's Big 50 companies and others have added to their reach.
Here's this week's Top 5:
New Mountain Capital Acquires Zep Inc. : Announced Wednesday, high-performance maintenance and cleaning chemical manufacturer Zep Inc. has agreed to be taken private by equity firm New Mountain Capital for $692 million.
BlackHawk Industrial Acquires New England's Pioneer Tool Supply : BlackHawk, No. 29 on The Big 50, on Tuesday announced the acquisition of Pioneer Tool Supply, along with its branches Pioneer Precision Grinding and Cataleap. Financial terms were not disclosed. Headquartered in Agawam, MA, family-owned Pioneer was founded in 1948. It is a metalworking and cutting tools distributor in the New England marketplace, with locations in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Maine. Adding Pioneer Precision Grinding enchances BlackHawk's sharpening/regrinding service offering, now giving the company six operations that offer such a value-added service. Cataleap is Pioneer's product catalog partner.
DXP Acquires Oregon's Tool Supply : DXP Enterprises, No. 19 on the Big 50, on Wednesday announced its completed acquisition of Oregon-based Tool Supply, Inc., a distributor of cutting tools, abrasives, coolants, and machine shop supplies. Tool Supply is headquartered in Tualatin, OR and operates out of additional locations in Eugene, OR and Rancho Cucmonga, CA. It serves customers in the transportation-aircraft, general industrial machining, wood processing, aerospace, and OEM markets with approximately 13 employees. Financial terms of the transactions were not disclosed.
ERIKS Acquires Seals And Packings : ERIKS, No. 15 on the Big 50, recently announced it has acquired Texas-based Seals and Packings, Inc., a provider of high-performance seals and related components to a wide range of industries. ERIKS says the acquisition enables it to enhance its client base in the U.S. oil and gas industry and further strengthens its product and service offerings to existing and new customers.
MSC Boosts Q2 Sales, Expands Hertel Line : MSC Industrial Supply, No. 14 on the Big 50, reported its 2015 second quarter financials on Wednesday for the period ended Feb. 28. Q2 net sales of $706.4 million were up 6.8 percent year-over-year from Q2 2014, and net profit improved to $51.5 million from $49.5 million last year, but the results were still disappointing for MSC. The company had projected income to be between $717 million to 729 million, citing tumbling oil prices and soft export demand for the shortcoming. MSC also announced it is significantly expanding its Hertel line of metalworking products. This expanded offering features a wide range of new tools, including material-specific turning insert grades, spotting drills, combined drill and countersink tools, as well as additional solid carbide roughing end mills.