Novolex™ Acquires Wisconsin Film & Bag
Shawano, WI, October 1, 2015 – Novolex™, a Wind Point Partners portfolio company, today announced it has acquired Wisconsin Film & Bag (WF&B), a premier manufacturer of custom polyethylene bags and films as well as a leader in sustainable and recycled materials based in Shawano, WI. The Company operates a converting plant and a plastics recycling plant near Shawano and has approximately 175 employees.
“We are excited about the addition of Wisconsin Film & Bag to the Novolex™ family,” Stan Bikulege, Chairman and CEO of Novolex™ states. “This is important to us because it will further enhance our high quality packaging choices for customers while advancing our position as the industry leader in sustainability. It’s a great fit for Novolex™ and we will look forward to integrating the Shawano Team with our successful Novolex Custom Film & Bag brand. Our focus is to continue to invest in our business and supply our customers with world class paper and plastic packaging products.”
Wisconsin Film & Bag was founded in 1972 in Oconto, WI as a manufacturer of can liners. The company expanded and moved to the Shawano site in the early 1980s. It has experienced continuous growth over the last 40 years and invested in state of the art manufacturing systems. The Company has won several prestigious awards in recent years for innovation and has unique expertise in the recovery and recycling of post-industrial and post-consumer plastics packaging.
Alex Washington, a Managing Director at Wind Point, said “We’re very excited to welcome Wisconsin Film & Bag into the Novolex family and commend Jim Feeney, CEO of WF&B, and the entire organization on the track record of quality and success, which we plan to build upon.”
WF&B is Novolex’s fourth acquisition since Wind Point Partners acquired Novolex™ (formerly Hilex Poly) in 2012, in partnership with Chairman and CEO Stan Bikulege. Previous Novolex™ acquisitions include Packaging Dynamics (December 2014), Duro Bag (July 2014) and a portion of Clondalkin Group’s North American Flexible Packaging Division (April 2013). With the addition of WF&B, Novolex is now a $2.0 billion revenue company with over 5,200 employees and 37 manufacturing locations in North America, including two world-class recycling facilities.
DLA Piper LLP, and Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough LLP acted as advisors to Novolex. William Blair & Co. and Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c. acted as advisors to Wisconsin Film & Bag.