A local manufacturing company is being acquired but an official with the area firm is optimistic the deal will mean continued growth.
The company is IEC Electronics, and although technically it’s being termed a merger, Boston-based Creation Technologies is acquiring IEC in a deal worth about $242 million including debt.
Both companies are contract manufacturers, and IEC employs about 700 people in this region, many of them in Newark, Wayne County, where the corporate headquarters is located and they also have an operation in Chili. And IEC also has operations in New Mexico.
IEC President and CEO Jeff Schlarbaum he sees the two companies as being complementary to each other.
“In the specialized markets that we play in, they’re highly valuable to Creation because we supplement what they’re doing. So they’re really motivated on not only retaining the footprint we have today, but investing in scale and growth,” Schlarbaum said.
Joining forces with Creation Technologies, which is a privately held company, will also mean that IEC Electronics will no longer be publicly traded.
But Schlarbaum said that move should actually help IEC unlock capital to help the company grow, because of the costs involved in being a publicly traded business.
Schlarbaum also said that combining with Creation Technologies should help IEC attract and retain staff in what is a very competitive job market.
“I think us being part of a larger company that provides better benefits to our employees, greater employment advantages, not only locally, but if there’s ambitions to work on a global stage. I think there’s a lot of advantages that should help us become a more attractive employer tomorrow, per se, when the deal closes, versus we haven’t in the past.”
The merger is expected to close this fall.
