Waukegan, Illinois-based Visual Pak purchases Unilever's Cosmetic Labs of America, Hexagon Packaging's plant facility, equipment assets; CEO says purchases enhance product offering, geographic footprint

Lorena Madrigal

WAUKEGAN, Illinois , January 10, 2012 (press release) – The Visual Pak Companies today announced two acquisitions that will greatly expand its service offerings throughout the United States. The first acquisition involves the purchase of Cosmetic Labs of America (CLA) from Unilever. Located in Chatsworth, California, CLA is widely regarded as a premier West Coast contract packaging company producing unique and inventive formulas and packages within the personal care and cosmetic industries.

The second acquisition is for the plant facility and equipment assets of Hexagon Packaging Corporation, which specializes in consumer and industrial cleaning products, chemical processing and filling services.

"At a time when many of our competitors are struggling or looking to downsize, we are aggressively looking to grow both organically and through acquisitions to strengthen our company," said Clayton Bolke, CEO, The Visual Pak Companies. "These acquisitions enhance both our product offering and our geographic footprint to better serve existing and new customers."

Founded in 1971, CLA has long been known as an innovative product-development company in the consumer- and salon-product markets. CLA's competitive edge within the personal care and cosmetics industries has been shaped over the last 40 years through the development of many globally recognized brands that have been successfully distributed in mass retail, professional, multi-tier marketing, direct response and medical channels. CLA customers include Fortune 500 companies, well-known health, beauty, cosmetic and fragrance brands and a host of other specialized health and beauty aid companies. CLA became a Unilever asset as a result of its May 2011 acquisition of Alberto Culver.

Oscar Saldarriaga, General Manager of CLA, will join The Visual Pak Companies continuing to lead and manage CLA business activities.

"This is a synergistic acquisition that will benefit both companies' growth plans," said Saldarriaga. "Combining Visual Pak's vertically integrated packaging service offering with CLA's strengths in product development and custom packaging will have an immediate and long term benefit to customer's growth plans. We are also excited that CLA's employees will become part of The Visual Pak Companies team."

CLA realizes the importance of providing reliable contract manufacturing service to its customers. It will work closely with the three other Visual Pak blending and filling plant locations in the Waukegan, Illinois area doing business under the American Blending & Filling name. American Blending & Filling currently produces liquid, cream and gel products for the household, health & beauty and personal-care markets, filling product into tubes, bottles, jars and other package types of all kinds and provides comprehensive R&D and turnkey sourcing services.

Established in 1985 and located in Waukegan Illinois, Hexagon has been specializing in liquid blending and filling of household and industrial cleaners, fabric washes, polishes, and various other products for the automotive and household industries. With the additional capabilities and expertise with such products as car waxes, polishes, jewelry cleaners, consumer and commercial grade cleaners, and much more, this acquisition will help compliment many of our existing customers by providing another opportunity to single source the manufacturing of their brands as well as offer us opportunities to forge relationships with new customers seeking such services.

In addition to liquid blending and filling, this operation also offers packaging services such as shrink wrapping, blister packaging, assembly, labeling and years of significant distribution experience. This new acquisition will also operate and be managed by American Blending & Filling (ABF).

These acquisitions strategically expand The Visual Pak Companies' liquid packaging service offering and creates immediate opportunities to produce new cleaning products of all types with both current and prospective customers to The Visual Pak Companies.

"We aim to become the leading liquid and secondary contract packaging company with an unwavering focus on quality and customer satisfaction," said Bolke. "These acquisitions immediately make us a better company and we are excited to bring the expanded capabilities to our clients."

About The Visual Pak Companies
Headquartered in Waukegan, Illinois, The Visual Pak Companies is a 30 year old, privately owned group of interdependent contract packaging service companies each with distinct manufacturing capabilities. The companies work collaboratively to deliver world-class packaging solutions and reduce costs through the vertically integrated company structure. The Visual Pak Companies provide liquid blending and filling, contract manufacturing, contract packaging, thermoforming, paperboard printing/converting, labeling, assembly, steam/heat shrink, nationwide distribution, warehousing fulfillment and complete turnkey logistics services. Customers include many of the largest or best known brands within the personal care, household, health/beauty, food and automotive packaging industries.

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