Sigma Plastics Buys BJK Flexible Packaging

Sigma Plastics Group, already the largest privately owned film extrusion group in North America, is expanding again. This time in Kentucky.

Pompano Beach, Fla.-based Sigma acquired BJK Flexible Packaging of Louisville, a move that adds 45 million pounds of blown film capacity.

BJK makes a range of monolayer as well as three- and five-layer coextruded films and serves the food, beverage, transportation, chemical, converter and furniture markets, Sigma said.

The company will be a stand-alone division of Sigma, and James Schandle will remain as president and chief operating officer of the facility. Brian Krein, whose father founded the company in 1977, will stay on as executive vice chairman of BJK.

"My father, Reuben Krein, founded BJK on the philosophy that customers would receive a company committed to their success. I have no doubt that Sigma and the Teo family has a similar philosophy for their business and will carry on this legacy at BJK for years to come," Brian Krein said in a statement.

Sigma also dates to the late 1970s and was founded by Alfred Teo. The company has grown over the years, in part due to a series of acquisitions. Sigma now has 41 manufacturing locations with an annual throughput of more than 2 billion pounds of resin. The company has more than 4,500 workers.

Brian Krein and Schandle could not be reached for comment May 10, but the company last summer revealed a $4.5 million project to install another five-layer blown film coextrusion system.

The company makes film, sheets and bags. BJK also sells to converters, printers and laminators, according to the earlier report.

Sales for the company were forecast, last summer, to be $58 million for 2016.

When the new machinery was installed last summer, the company indicated it employed 80 and operated out of 80,000 square feet, which included a new 15,000-square-foot warehouse. The company also had 11 other warehouse locations in the United States and Canada at the time.

BJK becomes the second Louisville-based plastic company to change hands in recent days.

Injection molder Viking Plastics of Corry, Pa., also purchased Kentucky Manufacturing & Technology LLC, which makes high-precision, custom injected mold products.