By Frank Esposito
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
Published: December 3, 2013 3:53 pm ET
Updated: December 3, 2013 4:47 pm ET
Image By: Chromaflo
Scott Becker, CEO of Ashtabula, Ohio-based Chromaflo
Less than two years after its own formation, Chromaflo Technologies is merging with CPS Color BV's colorants business to create a global color and pigment dispersion firm with annual sales of more than $400 million.
The combination "is a perfect fit of two players in different segments of the colorants industry," Scott Becker, CEO of Ashtabula, Ohio-based Chromaflo, said in a Dec. 3 news release.
The combined business will operate under the Chromaflo name and will be majority owned by Arsenal Capital Partners, the New York-based private equity firm that created Chromaflo by combining Plasticolors Inc. and the Colortrend unit of Evonik Industries AG in May 2012.
Arsenal then added to Chromaflo by acquiring the Tint-Ayd brand line of colorants from Elementis Specialties Inc. in December 2012.
CPS Color BV owner Nordic Capital Fund VI of Stockholm, Sweden, will be a minority shareholder in Chromaflo. Nordic had formed CPS Color from two similar companies in 2008.
The new Chromaflo merger does not include CPS Color's equipment business, which makes dispensers, mixers and shakers. That business now will operate under Nordic ownership as COROB, a separate firm with annual sales of about $100 million.
The newly expanded Chromaflo will operate plants North America, Europe, China and Australia. The firm makes chemical and pigment dispersions for thermoset plastics and composites and numerous other markets. | 
