DeWITT — The new owners of General Super Plating Co., Inc. intend to help their company shine again. “We want to grow it and get it back to maybe where it was 15 to 20 years ago,” says J.T. Jacus, a Rochester–based investor who acquired the firm May 30 along with a partner, Mark Watson. […]
DeWITT — The new owners of General Super Plating Co., Inc. intend to help their company shine again.
“We want to grow it and get it back to maybe where it was 15 to 20 years ago,” says J.T. Jacus, a Rochester–based investor who acquired the firm May 30 along with a partner, Mark Watson. Watson is a businessman who lives in Newmarket, Ontario and also owns the DeWitt cutting-tool distributor Harrison Industrial Supply, Inc.
General Super Plating, which is headquartered in a 75,000-square-foot building at 5762 Celi Drive in DeWitt, specializes in plating plastic parts. The firm can also plate metal parts. It plates products for a variety of companies, including manufacturers in the automotive industry.
The company weathered that industry’s downturn during the recent recession, according to Jacus. Now, he believes it is poised to grow.
But restoring General Super Plating to its former luster will require some hiring. The firm employs just over 100 people — about 90 full-time workers and between 10 and 25 temporary employees, depending on production requirements. That’s down from a total of 250 employees about two decades ago, according to Jacus.
General Super Plating is currently trying to hire about five more full-time workers to replace temporary positions, he adds. But Jacus recognizes that the company won’t reach its long-term objectives overnight.
“Our goal is to understand the business, get a good handle on it, and get a couple clients that we didn’t have before by the year’s end,” says Jacus, who declined to share revenue totals or revenue-growth projections. He also declined to disclose the financial details of the asset sale transferring ownership of General Super Plating.
Jacus and Watson first met in the fall of 2011, when Jacus worked in Rochester for Troy, Mich.–based Crestmark Bank. Watson was talking to the bank about financing for Harrison Industrial Supply.
“We had worked on [Watson’s] financing deal, and we became very good friends,” Jacus says. “I realized my long-term goal would be to buy something old-economy manufacturing, and we said, ‘Let’s see if we can buy something together.’ ”
Later, Jacus learned about the opportunity to acquire General Super Plating through a contact he has at the Upstate New York Chapter of the Turnaround Management Association. Jacus serves on the advisory committee of that organization, a nonprofit that works to restore corporate value.
Jacus left his position at Crestmark Bank in February to prepare to assume ownership of General Super Plating. Pittsford–based JC Jones & Associates, LLC helped broker the acquisition deal, he says.
Jacus and Watson did not acquire General Super Plating’s facility on Celi Road. Watson says the company now leases that building from its former owner, Thomas Gerhardt.
Gerhardt owned the company along with Kim Jeffery, Watson adds. Both Gerhardt and Jeffery agreed to stay with the company as consultants for three months after the sale closed to help it transition to its new owners.
Both former owners felt ready to sell the business, Watson says.
“Kim has a young family,” he says. “Tom has an interest in a Mexico plating operation which does completely different plating than what we do.”
Gerhardt and Jeffery did not respond to a request for comment.
Now that he co-owns General Super Plating, Watson plans to focus on improving the company’s marketing.
The firm will revamp its website, he says. It will produce a new brochure to highlight its capabilities. And Watson expects to be personally involved in finding new clients.
“They had no real sales force,” Watson says. “Just independent representatives out of town. That’s where I come in.”
Watson would like to grow General Super Plating’s revenue at a similar pace to his other firm, Harrison Industrial Supply. That company, which he came out of retirement to acquire in September 2010, has grown from $9.5 million in annual revenue when he took over to $12 million in 2011.
Watson is projecting Harrison Industrial Supply will generate $15 million in revenue in 2012. The company employs 20 people at its DeWitt headquarters and five more in Fairport, near Rochester.