NEWs

ATLANTA, GA – NOVEMBER 18, 2019 —

East West Manufacturing, LLC (“East West” or the “Company”), a global design, manufacturing and distribution business, announced today that it has acquired Adcotron EMS, Inc. (“Adcotron”), a provider of specialized electronics manufacturing services, including advanced printed circuit board assemblies, box-build assemblies, testing, and new product introduction services. Adcotron was founded in 2005 and is located in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts. This acquisition further enhances the growth of East West by adding a well-established operation in one of the Northeast’s key innovation centers. Adcotron also advances East West’s strategic focus on growing its domestic electronics manufacturing capabilities and expanding its U.S. manufacturing operations.

“We are excited to partner with Adcotron to expand our manufacturing operations in Boston.” said Scott Ellyson, East West co-founder and CEO. “Adcotron has a phenomenal reputation for putting its customers first and has an established presence in a variety of high-growth sectors such as medical equipment, robotics and telecommunications. This acquisition allows us to offer our customers even greater domestic, higher mix, lower volume, quick turn electronic manufacturing services. Being in Boston, a rapidly growing technology center, is especially exciting. Best of all, our collective design, manufacturing and supply chain capabilities will enable us to provide even higher levels of service and support to customers on a global basis.”

East West Board Member Bob Nardelli said, “Expanding the company’s operations to Boston aligns perfectly with our strategy of building our portfolio by incorporating companies offering innovative and diverse solutions to our collective and growing customer base.”

Alex Mammen, Heritage Growth Partners founder and East West board member added, “The addition of Adcotron, our first acquisition outside the Southeastern U.S., provides East West with the ability to marry its high-volume international design, manufacturing and distribution capabilities with a well-respected, domestic manufacturer to address the full spectrum of customer needs from new product design and development to full-scale production. We expect the East West-Adcotron combination to gain significant market share through these expanded capabilities, particularly within the growing corporate and public innovation centers in and around Boston and the Northeastern U.S.”

Agnes Young, founder and CEO of Adcotron said, “The leadership team and associates here at Adcotron are excited about joining the East West family. Our capabilities, culture and customer first focus align perfectly. We expect the new combined company to help our customers continue to grow!”

About East West Manufacturing, LLC

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, East West is a global design, manufacturing and distribution services partner for original equipment manufacturers and distributors throughout North America and Europe. With domestic operations in Georgia, North Carolina and Massachusetts and international operations in Costa Rica, Vietnam, China and India, the Company utilizes a global design team, transparent supply chain, on-site quality control and flexible logistics systems to provide its customers with superior products and competitive cost advantages. Founded in 2001, East West offers its customers a differentiated breadth of onshore, nearshore and offshore design, manufacturing and distribution capabilities to serve the full spectrum of customer needs ranging from new product design to full-scale production and distribution.

About Adcotron EMS, Inc.

Founded in 2005, Adcotron is an advanced electronics manufacturer of high mix, high complexity, low-to-medium volume products that specializes in box builds, PCB assembly, NPI, prototyping, supply chain management, system integration, and testing services for the medical, industrial equipment, telecommunications, energy, and defense industries. Adcotron is an ITAR Compliant and ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 13485:2016 Certified company based in Boston, MA.

For more information visit: www.adcotron.com

About Heritage Growth Partners LLC

Heritage Growth Partners LLC is an Atlanta-based private, family investment office focused on serving owner-managers and their companies to accelerate growth and create long-term value. Heritage takes a collaborative approach to investing, with the goal of building true partnerships with management that are enhanced by its patient and flexible family capital and its ongoing strategic, financial and operational support.

For more information visit: www.heritagegrowth.com

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ATLANTA, GA – OCTOBER 29, 2019 —

East West Manufacturing, LLC announced today that it has acquired SureTech Assembly, Inc. (“SureTech”), a specialized provider of manufacturing, assembly, testing and rework services related to wire and cable interconnects and harnesses, electromechanical assemblies and box builds. SureTech was founded in 2000 and is located near the Research Triangle in North Carolina. The acquisition of SureTech further enhances the growth of East West and advances the Company’s strategic focus on growing its domestic electronics manufacturing capabilities and expanding U.S. manufacturing operations.

“We found the perfect partner with SureTech to expand our existing manufacturing operations in the Raleigh area.” said Scott Ellyson, East West Co-founder and CEO. “SureTech has a longstanding reputation for putting its customers first. This acquisition allows us to offer our customers even greater domestic, higher mix, lower volume, quick turn electronic manufacturing services, with a focus on specialized wire and cable interconnects and harnesses. Best of all, our collective design, manufacturing and supply chain capabilities will enable us to provide even higher levels of service and support to customers on a global basis.”

East West Board member Bob Nardelli said, “This acquisition aligns perfectly with our strategy of building our portfolio by incorporating companies offering innovative and diverse solutions to our collective and growing customer base.”

Alex Mammen, Heritage Growth Partners Founder and East West Board member added, “The addition of SureTech, our second acquisition in the Raleigh area and our third overall in North Carolina, provides East West with the ability to marry its high-volume international design, manufacturing and distribution capabilities with a well-respected, domestic manufacturer to address the full spectrum of customer needs from new product design and development to full-scale production. We expect the East West-SureTech combination to gain significant market share through these expanded capabilities, particularly within the growing corporate and public innovation centers in and around North Carolina.”

Ron Bowman, Founder and CEO of SureTech said, “The leadership team and all the associates here at SureTech are excited about becoming part of the growing East West family. Our capabilities, culture and customer first focus align perfectly. We expect the new combined company to help our customers in so many new ways!”

About East West Manufacturing, LLC

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, East West is a global design, manufacturing and distribution services partner for original equipment manufacturers and distributors throughout North America and Europe. With domestic operations in Georgia, North Carolina and Massachusetts and international operations in Costa Rica, Vietnam, China and India, the Company utilizes a global design team, transparent supply chain, on-site quality control and flexible logistics systems to provide its customers with superior products and competitive cost advantages. Founded in 2001, East West offers its customers a differentiated breadth of onshore, nearshore and offshore design, manufacturing and distribution capabilities to serve the full spectrum of customer needs ranging from new product design to full scale production and distribution.

About SureTech Assembly, Inc.

Founded in 2000, SureTech provides a wide variety of specialized manufacturing, assembly, testing and rework services related to wire and cable interconnects and harnesses, electromechanical assemblies and box builds. SureTech is an ISO 9001:2015 Certified company based in Youngsville, NC.

For more information visit: www.suretechassembly.com.

About Heritage Growth Partners LLC

Heritage Growth Partners LLC is an Atlanta-based private, family investment office focused on serving owner-managers and their companies to accelerate growth and create long-term value. Heritage takes a collaborative approach to investing, with the goal of building true partnerships with management that are enhanced by its patient and flexible family capital and its ongoing strategic, financial and operational support.

For more information visit: www.heritagegrowth.com.

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Picchi helped East West Manufacturing acquire first US-based plants.

Michael Picchi

Title: Chief financial officer

Company/organization name: East West Manufacturing

Length of service in current position: 2 years

Tenure at company: 2 years

Length of service in role: 13 years as CFO across four companies

Length of service in industry: 30 years in accounting/finance

Describe your key accomplishment within the past year: Helping East West acquire its first U.S.-based manufacturing assets: purchasing two manufacturing businesses in North Carolina. I co-led due diligence and worked with SunTrust to secure acquisition financing.

In less than two years, Michael Picchi has already made a positive impression and a measurable impact at East West Manufacturing, where he has been CFO since October 2017.

Described by his nominators as “practical and pragmatic” as well as “strategic and creative,” Picchi is the Medium Private Company CFO award winner in the 2019 CFO of the Year Awards sponsored by Atlanta Business Chronicle in partnership with the Association for Corporate Growth Atlanta.

Founded in 2001, East West is a global contract manufacturer of complex, precision components, electronics and motors, providing U.S.-based engineering and customer support. Picchi oversees a finance team of about 25, including five in the Atlanta corporate office as well as those working in four plant locations around the world.

“He’s really the quarterback of the team,” said Andy Reese, East West director of business development, who says Picchi has overseen a rapidly growing business “that once again posted 20 percent- plus organic growth and successfully closed two acquisitions, adding $50 million to the company’s top line.”

In his nomination, Reese wrote that Picchi embodies the perfect combination of financial acumen and the ability to make concepts understandable to everyone.

In the last year, Picchi served a key role in acquiring East West’s first U.S.-based manufacturing assets, a move toward achieving the company’s strategic goal of becoming more customer responsive by expanding its manufacturing capabilities that had been based primarily in Asia into targeted regions in the United States. He conducted the due diligence and led other activities during the process of buying a plant outside Raleigh-Durham and purchasing another North Carolina business that included two plants — one near Charlotte and another in San Juan, Costa Rica.

According to Picchi, “We’d like to build this company north of $400 million in revenue, and we’re on a really great trajectory to do that.” Half the growth, he said, is coming from organic sales — winning new business and expanding work with existing customers — and half is coming from the strategic acquisitions that add manufacturing growth inside the U.S.

Nancy Halwig, senior vice president at United Community Bank, has known Picchi professionally for a number of years. She says that Mike’s strengths lie not only in his attributes of being a great leader and collaborator, but in his humor and “can-do” attitude. In her 44-year career as a banker, she says she has rarely run across a CFO who is as likeable as Picchi and willing to do whatever is required — whether the task is high level or mundane — to get the job done without ego or complaint.

In addition to closing deals, Picchi, who has 30 years of accounting experience, says what gives him the most satisfaction is helping others develop professionally and maintaining those relationships. He is especially gratified that six people who have worked under him over the years and “seen my mistakes and what I’ve done well” have themselves become CFOs.

“I’m intrinsically motivated and get so much enjoyment out of watching people develop, giving them additional challenges, and then watching them go succeed after they work for me,” he said.

Outside of work, Picchi finds meaning in family and community. He and his wife Amanda have four children: a daughter, 26, who is a teacher; a son, 25, who Picchi says is a third-generation accountant; and two daughters in high school: one a junior, the other a freshman.

Through their church, Roswell United Methodist Church, the Picchis have participated in a number of mission projects, including rebuilding homes in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. A project with other couples from his church that raised money to build a school for an orphanage in Kenya holds a special place in the family’s hearts, said Picchi. He has so far traveled to Kenya three times, each time bringing one of his own children with him.

At East West, Picchi says he sees himself “as part of a really exceptional team — both at the company senior leadership level and as part of the finance people I work with.”

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An Atlanta-based contract manufacturer that built its reputation by sourcing across the world in Asia now has another foreign factory closer to home. 

As part of its acquisition of Mooresville, N.C.-based General Microcircuits Inc. announced this week, Atlanta’s East West Manufacturing gets the company’s factory in San Jose, Costa Rica. 

It’s a play toward what the company calls “nearshoring,” providing U.S. customers pricing and quality benefits similar to what it offers from its Asia factories — without the weekslong ocean journey. GMI, which also sources from China, Korea and Taiwan, makes electronic components including printed circuit board assemblies. 

ourcing across the Pacific can be much cheaper from a pure pricing standpoint, but factor in logistics costs and the need for quicker turnaround in many industries, and places like Costa Rica or even North Carolina become more competitive. 

The Costa Rica factory, along with General Microcircuits’ Mooresville facility, complements East West’s established Asia network, which is better suited for low-cost, high-volume parts. That allows the company to capture more value from each customer relationship. 

“We can now offer customers a supply chain solution from the napkin through prototyping, new product introduction, small production runs, scaling production and mass production through the various operations,” says East West spokesman Andy Reese. “We plan to grow both N.C. and Costa Rica by leveraging our sales and marketing reach and existing customer relationships. Both of GMI’s locations are well-positioned for immediate growth.”

GMI has 110 people in North Carolina and about 100 in Costa Rica. 

East West is now more closely mirroring the vision for the company co-founders Scott Ellyson and Jeff Sweeney had when they launched it in 2001. 

“Our partnership with GMI allows us to offer a truly global supply chain to our customers,” Mr. Ellyson, the CEO, said in a news release. 

Speaking at a Global Atlanta forum held last July, the New York-based North American representative for CINDE, Costa Rica’s investment promotion agency, said the country is focusing heavily on high-tech manufacturing. The country already exports $5.2 billion in IT-enabled services and $3 billion in medical devices and its constantly working with companies to retool the country’s workforce for the jobs of tomorrow.

“We really are focusing on making the very well-established industries grow,” Pilar Madrigal said during the event held in Atlanta.

The GMI website touts Costa Rica’s 95 percent literacy rate and the factory’s central time zone, lack of duties or tariffs and seven- to 10-day ocean transit to the U.S.

The deal is East West’s second acquisition in North Carolina in recent months as it undertakes an expansion strategy centered on the domestic market with the help of a capital investment from Heritage Growth Partners. 

It bought Raleigh-based Team Manufacturing in September. With that deal, plus GMI and the 50-plus people in the Atlanta headquarters, East West now employs more than 250 in the U.S. and 1,700-plus globally, many of them in the company’s wholly owned factories in Vietnam. The terms of the most recent deal were not disclosed. 

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ATLANTA, GA – JANUARY 08, 2019 —

East West Manufacturing, LLC (“East West” or the “Company”), a global design, manufacturing and distribution business, announced today that it has acquired General Microcircuits, Inc. (“GMI”), a large provider of specialized electronics manufacturing services, including advanced printed circuit board assemblies, box-build assemblies, testing, and new product introduction services. GMI was founded in 1980 and operates manufacturing facilities in Mooresville, North Carolina and San Jose, Costa Rica. The acquisition of GMI further enhances the growth of East West and advances the Company’s strategic focus on growing its global electronics capabilities by significantly expanding its U.S. and near-shore manufacturing operations.

“When Jeff Sweeney and I co-founded East West in 2001, we envisioned a global manufacturing company with a breadth of on-shore, near-shore and off-shore design, manufacturing and distribution capabilities to serve the full spectrum of customer needs. Our partnership with GMI allows us to offer a truly global supply chain to our customers.” said Scott Ellyson, East West CEO. “GMI has a long history of exceptional customer service. This acquisition, along with our recent acquisition of Team Manufacturing, allows East West to offer customers domestic and near-shore higher mix, lower volume, quick turn advanced electronics manufacturing services. Our collective design, manufacturing and supply chain capabilities will enable us to provide even higher levels of service and support to customers on a global basis.”

Dave Dalton, President and CEO of GMI said, “The leadership team, the associates here at GMI, and I, are all excited to join the East West family. Our culture, capabilities and commitment to putting customers first aligns perfectly. We are all very excited to bring the full breadth of capabilities to our collective customers.”

East West Board member Bob Nardelli said, “This second acquisition, which follows the September 2018 acquisition of Team Manufacturing near Raleigh, North Carolina, further advances our strategy of building our portfolio by incorporating companies offering global solutions to their customers.”

Alex Mammen, Heritage Growth Partners Founder and East West Board member added, “The acquisition of GMI provides East West with the ability to marry its high-volume international design, manufacturing and distribution capabilities with a large, domestic manufacturer, with near-shore capabilities in Costa Rica, to address the diverse needs of customers from new product design and development to full-scale production.

About East West Manufacturing, LLC
Based in Atlanta, Georgia, East West is a global design, manufacturing and distribution services partner for original equipment manufacturers and distributors throughout North America and Europe. With domestic operations in Georgia, North Carolina and Massachusetts and international operations in Costa Rica, Vietnam, China and India, the Company utilizes a global design team, transparent supply chain, on-site quality control and flexible logistics systems to provide its customers with superior products and competitive cost advantages. Founded in 2001, East West offers its customers a differentiated breadth of onshore, nearshore and offshore design, manufacturing and distribution capabilities to serve the full spectrum of customer needs ranging from new product design to full-scale production and distribution.

For more information please visit: http://www.ewmfg.com.

About General Microcircuits, Inc.
Founded in 1980, GMI provides advanced printed circuit board assembly, box build assembly, testing and new product introduction services. GMI is an ISO 9001:2015, ISO 13484:2015, ISO 14001, ISO 80079-34 and EPA Certified Green electronics manufacturing services provider, based in Mooresville, North Carolina, with operations in San Jose, Costa Rica.

For more information visit: http://www.gmimfg.com.

About Heritage Growth Partners LLC
Heritage Growth Partners LLC is an Atlanta-based private, family investment office focused on serving owner-managers and their companies to accelerate growth and create long-term value. Heritage takes a collaborative approach to investing, with the goal of building true partnerships with management that are enhanced by its patient and flexible family capital and its ongoing strategic, financial and operational support.

For more information visit: http://www.heritagegrowth.com.

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