U.S. Investors Buy Negri Bossi Group

Ausable Capital Partners LLC, Santa Monica, Calif., and Kingsbury Corp., Rush, N.Y., have formed a venture that acquired all the assets of the Negri Bossi Group from Sacmi Imola of Italy. The sale includes manufacturing facilities in Italy and India, manufacturing partnerships in China and the Czech Republic, and sales/service subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. The portfolio includes Negri Bossi, BM Biraghi, and Oima injection machines and Sytrama robots.

Originally founded in 1947, Negri Bossi is the oldest maker of injection presses in Italy. Its range includes hydraulic, hybrid, and all-electric machines (up to 7700 tons clamp force) and related automation. U.S. offices of Negri Bossi and Sytrama are in New Castle, Del.

Ausable Capital Partners principal Matthew Galvez has extensive experience in injection molding, having led the purchase of custom molder Waltec Plastics, Midland, Ont., from Emco Ltd. (now called Baytech Plastics) in 1996 and was an active board member of Waltec for four years. Galvez was also CEO of Nematron Corp., Ann Arbor, Mich., a maker of industrial computers and PLC accessories, from 1998 to 2002. Galvez is now chairman of Negri Bossi S.p.A.

Galvez also acted as an advisor to William Pollock in his purchase of Kingsbury Corp. in 2012. The two men have worked together on a number of automation projects in the last decade. Pollock is founder and CEO of Optimation Technologies Inc. in Rush, N.Y., near Rochester. Optimation provides automation services and industrial controls. Kingsbury designs, builds, and installs industrial automation systems for high-speed automated assembly, special machining, and other metalworking processes. Its customers have included the U.S. Defense Dept., Ford, Briggs & Stratton, Whirlpool, and Honeywell.

Together, the Negri Bossi Group, Kingsbury, and Optimation will be able to provide complete solutions for customers in industries such as automotive, packaging, electronics, pharmaceuticals, and appliances. The market connections of Negri Bossi Group also could help Kingsbury grow the European market for its special-purpose metal-cutting equipment.

Sacmi Imola, which bought Negri Bossi in 2002, plans to refocus on its core businesses, which include ceramics, packaging, and food processing. It retains its stretch-blow molding and continuous compression molding technologies. Sacmi Group’s general manager, Pietro Cassani, will become a member of the Kingsbury board of directors.

The Negri Bossi group will continue to be operated and managed from Italy. However, with the help of Kingsbury, the new owners expect that Negri Bossi “will be able to bring significant manufacturing of injection molding machines back to the U.S.” Negri Bossi’s large two-platen Bi-Power line (1100-7700 tons) will continue to be built by Sacmi Imola for the foreseeable future.