Midwest Rake Co. has acquired Seymour Manufacturing of Seymour, Ind., the Warsaw company announced Wednesday.
Seymour is a 140-year-old, family-owned maker of long-handled tools for agricultural, construction and other markets. Employees were informed Tuesday of the purchase, which took effect Sept. 28, along with the news that their jobs will not be affected, according to Seymour-area reports.
The 22-year-old Warsaw company was one of several interested buyers, said Midwest co-owner and Executive Vice President since 2000 Jeff Plank. Other co-owners are Randy Swanson, President Bill Henthorn and Executive Vice President Chuck Yeager.
“It seems as though just about every manufacturer of long-handled tools in the country and out of the country were interested in buying Seymour,” Plank said. “They’re a historic institution in the long-handled tool marketplace.”
But the fact that Midwest was interested in letting Seymour keep its name, location and workers weighed in their favor, he said.
“It won the day for Midwest Rake,” he remarked in the conference room of their 60-acre site south of Warsaw. “I think we were selected because of our reputation in the marketplace combined with our respect for the Seymour heritage and its people.”
The acquisition process took about a year, though Plank declined to disclose the terms.
He did remark on upcoming decisions such as product integration – which tools overlap and under whose name they’ll be sold – as well as prospective expansion and new employment.
An expansion of both companies’ customer base, which he said saw only a 10 to 15 percent overlap before the acquisition, will probably require new jobs at both companies, but “right now our only focus is on the fact that we don’t intend to get rid of anybody. There are no immediate plans to do that. We see the potential of the acquisition as strong enough to sustain current employment at both companies.”
The Birge family, which has owned Seymour since its founding, said they anticipate the combined companies becoming dominant in the market, according to a letter sent to Seymour area media that Plank shared.
He attributed his own company’s growth to creativity, acquisitions – purchasing the Northstar and Kenyon tool companies in the past six years – and “probably some boldness. Those are some of the things that make us atypical.” He also described Midwest as a quiet company.
“We do what we do, which is produce a range of quality products with quality people,” he said. “I’m very proud of the fact that the union of the two companies represents a significant number of products that are American made.”
Plank also expressed a sense of respect for Seymour’s history, and described carrying the century-and-a-half-old name as “an awesome responsibility.”
“It has a very special meaning to me,” he said. “I think it’s important, any way we can, to remind ourselves that there probably isn’t an inch of soil, or pavement or concrete that hasn’t been walked on before we set foot on it.”
