Kimball acquires family of Indy manufacturers for $11.8M

Jasper-based Kimball Electronics has purchased Indianapolis-based Aircom Manufacturing Inc. two months after buying a subsidiary of the firm, in two deals totaling $11.8 million and involving 165 employees.

Kimball Electronics paid $3.5 million to acquire Aircom’s 80,000-square foot manufacturing facility on the northeast side, along with its production equipment and inventory and certain of the company’s liabilities. Kimball also hired Aircom’s 100 employees.

The deal closed on Monday. Kimball, a publicly traded company, disclosed the transaction in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Tuesday.

Aircom, located at 6205 E. 30th St., specializes in metal fabrication, plastic injection molding and assembly.

Kimball provides contract electronic manufacturing services, specializing in durable electronics for the medical, automotive, industrial and public safety markets. As of last month, the company had 4,300 employees worldwide, including 679 in Indiana. Its manufacturing facilities are in the U.S., Mexico, Thailand, Poland, China and Romania.

During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2015, Kimball earned $26.2 million on revenue of $819.4 million.

Aircom, the former parent company of Medivative Technologies LLC, was founded by the late Robert L Lyon in 1960 and has been owned and operated by the Lyon family since then. Medivative is at 2950 N. Catherwood Ave., right across the street from Aircom.

Kimball Electronics acquired Medivative in May for $8.3 million cash. Kimball picked up Medivative’s 65 employees in that transaction.

“It’s just a great opportunity for us to gain some new customers and to gain some new opportunities within the medical vertical,” said Kimball Electronics Treasurer Adam Smith.

Specifically, Smith said, Medivative helps produce drug delivery devices such as mechanical auto-injectors for epinephrine and for opioid overdose reversal drugs–market sectors that Kimball had not previously entered.

Aircom’s expertise in precision metals and plastics for the industrial and medical markets was another complement for Kimball, Smith said.

Rather than do both acquisitions at one time, Kimball decided to tackle them separately.

“We thought trying to take on Medivative and Aircom  would be too much all at once,” Smith said.

As part of the acquisition, Medivative and Aircom are getting new names.

Medivative will be known as Kimball Electronics Indianapolis and Aircom will become Kimball Electronics Fabrication.

“We are very proud of what our company has accomplished over all these years and we are happy to have had a positive impact on the lives of our employees,” Aircom President Ron Lyon said in a news release.

“We share our employees’ excitement as they look forward to a bright future as new members of the Kimball family,” he said.