Atlanta-based East West Manufacturing, which got its start 20 years ago sourcing from Asia, continued its expansion in the Americas this week with its first Canadian acquisition.
East West announced Wednesday that it purchased Varitron Inc., which makes electronics including circuit-board and box-build assemblies across four facilities around Montreal, including a research center in Mirabel.
Varitron attracted East West’s attention for its complementary strengths in rapid prototyping, product testing and research and development.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Varitron founder and Chairman Michel Farley said the company’s leadership team would remain intact.
Funded by Atlanta-based Heritage Growth Partners LLC, East West has in recent years made a string of acquisitions of strong companies executives believe can be made more competitive by linking into the company’s growing global supply chain. While maintaining its Asia network, the company increasingly has prioritized geographic diversification in the Western Hemisphere, partially to serve customers with quicker turnaround on smaller product runs in rapidly changing sectors.
“Varitron has an extraordinary reputation for putting customers first and has an established presence for innovation in a variety of high-growth sectors such as medical, industrial, telecommunications and defense,” said East West CEO Scott Ellyson in a news release. “Varitron allows us to offer our customers even greater nearshore, higher mix, lower volume, quick turn electronic manufacturing services.”
East West started in 2001 sourcing from China, where it still maintains relationships with more than 400 suppliers out of a Shenzhen office. It later moved to Vietnam, where it operates five company-owned buildings, and opened an office in Chennai, India. Recent acquisitions have given the company footholds in Costa Rica and in the United States, where it now runs factories in Raleigh, Charlotte, Boston and Whitewater, Wis.
