By Frank Esposito
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
Published: March 6, 2014 10:57 am ET
Updated: March 6, 2014 11:00 am ET
BASF SE has sold its PolyAd Services business to Edgewater Capital Partners LP, a private equity firm based in Cleveland.
PolyAd supplies additives and formulation services from locations in Earth City, Mo., and Lampertheim, Germany. The business offers innovative specialty blends and services to solve additive incorporation problems for the plastics compounding and processing industry globally, officials with Ludwigshafen, Germany-based BASF said in a March 4 news release.
PolyAd “creates packages of customized additive blends of [materials such as] antioxidants, light stabilizers, flame retardants or other additives as a ready-mix package that are ready to use by plastics companies,” officials added in an e-mail.
In the release, Edgewater managing partner Ryan Meany said that “increasing performance and sustainability requirements for plastics…are driving an increased demand for innovative additive solutions for the underlying resins.”
Although PolyAd has grown in recent years, BASF officials said that its business model is “a niche business that offers a limited channel to market for its product portfolio.” Selling PolyAd will allow BASF to focus on core businesses such as light stabilizers, antioxidants and customer-specific blends, they said. No sale price was disclosed.
Since 1998, Edgewater has invested more than $50 million in on the acquisition of lower, middle-market performance materials companies. Plastics-related firms in Edgewater’s current portfolio include Tri-Tec Seal Inc. — a maker of fluoropoymer rotary seals in Swartz Creek, Mich. — and Gabriel Performance Products, a producer of epoxy curing agents in Ashtabula, Ohio. | 
