Lawson Products acquires Partsmaster

Lawson Products, Inc., a distributor of products and services to the MRO marketplace, announced the acquisition of Partsmaster, a leading maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) solutions provider with annual sales of approximately $63 million. Partsmaster serves 16,000 customers with over 200 sales representatives principally through a distribution center located in Greenville, Texas.

“This transaction is an important step in our continued growth strategy. We’re very excited about expanding our sales team and customer base further positioning Lawson as a leader in MRO vendor managed inventory services,” said Michael DeCata, president and CEO of Lawson. “Partsmaster is a strong strategic fit with a similar VMI business model, similar product margins, a complementary product offering, and a passion for providing great service to customers. We welcome the Partsmaster team and look forward to working with them, sharing best practices, and driving growth through our entire organization.”

Lawson Products will pay approximately $35.3 million plus the assumption of certain liabilities. Lawson paid $2.3 million of the purchase price at closing and will pay the remaining $33.0 million in May 2021. Lawson will satisfy the deferred portion of the purchase price with cash on hand and, to the extent necessary, any remaining portion using its existing $100 million committed credit facility. Excluding integration costs, Lawson expects the acquisition to be accretive starting in fiscal 2021 and expanding further into 2022 as it becomes fully integrated.

“We are excited to join an industry leader like Lawson Products,” said David Weiss, president, Partsmaster. “The transaction allows us to leverage our shared expertise and solid customer relationships to further expand our business. The entire Partsmaster team will greatly benefit from Lawson’s expanded product offering and North American distribution capabilities while Lawson will acquire a highly trained sales force along with a wide array of proprietary products to not only keep customers running, but also reduce their parts, labor, and downtime costs.”

Partsmaster, established in 1968, has been a division of privately-owned NCH Corporation, a global leader in industrial and commercial maintenance products based in Irving, Texas.

“The addition of Partsmaster accelerates our three-part growth strategy through acquisitions, expanding our sales team and driving sales rep productivity,” said DeCata. “This is our seventh and largest acquisition in the past five years. We plan to continue to be opportunistic in utilizing our strong balance sheet to make accretive acquisitions to integrate complementary businesses that leverage our strong market position and operational infrastructure.”