Injection moulding company Nolato (Toreskov / Sweden; www.nolato.com) is acquiring competitor GW Plastics (Bethel, Vermont / USA; www.gwplastics.com), which specialises in complex injection-moulded parts, for approximately SEK 2 bn (EUR 195m). The purchase essentially boosts Nolato’s presence in the US, which has so far comprised two plants in Andover, New Jersey, and Baldwin, Wisconsin. The transaction is to be completed by the end of September 2020.

This will increase the sales of Nolato’s Medical Solutions segment, currently its second-largest segment, turning it into by far the largest division. In 2019, GW Plastics generated overall revenues equivalent to EUR 175m, with medical solutions accounting for some 80% of this. The remaining 20% came from automotive parts, assigned to the Industrial Solutions segment at Nolato. Overall sales at Nolato are thus in excess of SEK 6 bn, with medical solutions set to account for almost half of this in future.

GW Plastics has 1,100 employees in seven plants in the US (4), Mexico and China. Together with Irish mould manufacturer Avenue Mould Solutions, acquired in 2017, it will operate largely independently in the first instance under the current management of president and CEO Brenan Riehl – but under the name Nolato-GW.

The company is noted especially for multi-component injection moulding as well as for overmoulding and encapsulation with thermoplastics and liquid silicone rubber (LSR). It was only at the start of 2020 that GW Plastics expanded the plant of its subsidiary GW Silicones in Royalton, Vermont, by just under 3,000 m², also adding a class-8 cleanroom with space for 20 injection moulding machines.