East West Manufacturing’s latest acquisition will give the company its first foothold in Mexico as the Atlanta-based firm continues to expand capabilities and footprint throughout the Western Hemisphere.
The contract manufacturer got its start in 2001 helping companies benefit from cost arbitrage and scale in China, eventually investing in a joint venture factory there before building a wholly-owned plant in Vietnam and opening a sourcing office in India — all operations it maintains today to give customers a mix of geographic and product diversity.
More recently, however, East West has been on a private-equity fueled acquisition spree on this side of the world amid growing concern about widely dispersed supply chains.
Since 2019, East West has bought companies across the United States as well as in Costa Rica and Canada, but Mexico, with its huge manufacturing base and strong trade links with the U.S., remained a missing link in North America.
On Jan. 5 the company announced it had purchased Compass Electronics Solutions, which has manufacturing operations in printed circuit board, box-build assemblies, wire and cable harness assemblies and other products straddling the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico.
East West continues to prioritize design and manufacturing of engineered electronic products that CEO and co-founder Scott Ellyson says “improve ourlives” by enabling competitiveness and innovation in robotics, medical devices, smart technology and the Internet of Things, power generation, automation, HVAC and other sectors.
The company announced Feb. 1 that it had recapitalized with a new investment led by MSD Partners, facilitating an exit by Emigrant Capital Corp. and Heritage Growth Partners, the latter being the fund that had helped drive many recent acquisitions.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, though a news release noted that East West’s management management will “remain significant owners in the company and will continue to lead the business following MSD’s investment.”
East West says it will continue to look for acquisition opportunities that complement its existing strengths or bring in new capabilities; the company has bought nine companies in the last four years.
“It’s been an honor to go through this process with the MSD team and we couldn’t be more excited about the partnership. Their expertise and capital will only help to accelerate our already impressive growth,” Mr. Ellyson said, thanking the East West team for its hard work in a news release. “We have a shared interest in developing and manufacturing innovative products that improve our lives. Through this new partnership, we will continue to rapidly expand our capabilities globally to best support our customers.”
East West was named to the Association for Corporate Growth‘s Georgia Fast 40 list in 2021.
