Item 1. Business
ITEM 1 BUSINESS
General Development of Business
The Eastern Company was incorporated under the laws of the State of Connecticut in October, 1912, succeeding a co-partnership established in October, 1858. The businesses of the Company design, manufacture and sell unique engineered solutions for industrial markets.
Today, the Company maintains 21 physical locations across North America, Europe, and Asia.
BUSINESS HIGHLIGHTS
On November 19, 2020 the Company sold its subsidiary Sesamee Mexicana, S.A. de C.V. (“Sesamee Mexicana”). Sesamee Mexicana designs and manufactures composite panels and distributes industrial hardware. Eastern has exited the composite panels business as part of its strategy to streamline its business.
On August 10, 2020 the Company acquired certain assets, including accounts receivable, inventories, furniture, fixtures and equipment, intellectual property rights and rights existing under all sales and purchase agreements, and assumed certain liabilities, of Hallink, RSB Inc. These assets are held in our subsidiary, Hallink Moulds, Inc. (“Hallink Moulds”). Hallink Moulds is a leader in innovative injection blow mold tooling and is a leading supplier of blow molds and change parts to the food, beverage, healthcare and chemical industries. Hallink Moulds specializes in the design, development and manufacture of 2-step stretch blow molds, and related components for the stretch blow molding industry offering integrated turnkey solutions to its customers worldwide. The total consideration for the acquisition of Hallink Moulds was approximately $7.2 million which was paid out of the Company’s cash reserves.
On June 15, 2020 the Company sold its subsidiary, the Canadian Commercial Vehicles Corporation (“CCV”). CCV designs and manufactures composite panels. Eastern has exited the composite panels business as part of its strategy to streamline its business.
On August 30, 2019, the Company and its newly-formed wholly-owned subsidiary, Eastern Engineered Systems, Inc., a Delaware corporation (“EES”) entered into a Stock Purchase Agreement (the “Stock Purchase Agreement”) with Big 3 Holdings, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (“Seller”), Big 3 Precision Mold Services, Inc., a Delaware corporation and wholly-owned subsidiary of Seller (“Big 3 Mold”), Big 3 Precision Products, Inc., a Delaware corporation and wholly owned subsidiary of Seller (“Big 3 Products”), Industrial Design Innovations, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and wholly-owned subsidiary of Big 3 Products (“Design Innovations”), Sur-Form, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and wholly-owned subsidiary of Big 3 Products (“Sur-Form”), Associated Toolmakers LTD, a limited company formed under the laws of England and Wales and wholly-owned subsidiary of Big 3 Mold (“Associated Tool” and together with Big 3 Mold, Big 3 Products, Design Innovations and Sur-Form, collectively “Big 3 Precision”), TVV Capital Partners III, L.P., a Delaware limited partnership, TVV Capital Partners III-A, L.P., a Delaware limited partnership, Alan Scheidt, Todd Riley, Clinton Hyde, and Big 3 Holdings, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, as the initial Seller Representative. On August 30, 2019, pursuant to the Stock Purchase Agreement, the Company, through EES, acquired all of the outstanding equity interests of Big 3 Products and Big 3 Mold Services, and indirectly through them, all of the outstanding equity interests in Design Innovations, Sur-Form and Associated, for an adjusted purchase cash price of $81.2 million (the “Big 3 Precision Acquisition”). The Big 3 Precision Acquisition was financed with a combination of $2.1 million of cash on hand, a credit agreement (the “Credit Agreement”) with Santander Bank, N.A., for itself and, People’s United Bank, National Association and TD Bank, N.A. as lenders, providing for a $100.0 million term loan and a $20.0 million revolving credit line. In connection with the Credit Agreement, the Company also used its cash to repay the remaining balance (approximately $19.1 million) of its then outstanding term loan with People’s United Bank National Association. Through its two divisions, Big 3 Products and Big 3 Mold, Big 3 Precision serves diverse markets including truck, automotive, plastic packaging products, consumer packaged goods and pharmaceuticals. In particular, Big 3 Products works with leading manufacturers to design and produce custom returnable packaging to integrate with their assembly processes. Big 3 Mold is a global leader in the design and manufacture of blow mold tools.
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Description of Business
The Eastern Company manages industrial businesses that design, manufacture and sell unique engineered solutions to industrial markets. We believe Eastern’s businesses operate in industries with long-term macroeconomic growth opportunities. We look to acquire businesses that produce stable and growing earnings and cash flows. Eastern may pursue acquisitions in industries other than those in which its businesses currently operate if an acquisition presents an attractive opportunity.
Eastern focuses on proactive financial, operational, and strategic management of its businesses in order to increase cash generation, operating earnings and long-term shareholder value. Among other things, Eastern monitors financial and operational performance of each of its businesses and instills consistent financial discipline. Eastern’s management analyzes and pursues prudent organic growth strategies and works to execute attractive external growth and acquisition opportunities.
In addition, Eastern recruits and retains talented managers to operate its businesses. We look for leaders who are accountable, maintain cost discipline, act quickly, and build strong followership.
The Company reports in two business segments: Engineered Solutions and Diversified Products.
Engineered Solutions
The Engineered Solutions segment consists of Big 3 Precision, including Big 3 Products and Big 3 Mold, Hallink Moulds, Inc., Associated Toolmakers LTD; Eberhard Manufacturing Company, Eberhard Hardware Manufacturing Ltd., Eastern Industrial Ltd, Illinois Lock Company/CCL Security Products, World Lock Company Ltd., Dongguan Reeworld Security Products Ltd., and World Security Industries Ltd. (together “Eberhard”); and Velvac Holdings (“Velvac”). These businesses design, manufacture and market a diverse product line of custom and standard vehicular and industrial hardware, including turnkey returnable packaging solutions, access and security hardware, mirrors, and mirror-cameras.
Big 3 Products and Big 3 Mold’s turnkey returnable packaging solutions are used in the assembly processes of vehicles, aircraft and durable goods and in the production processes of plastic packaging products, packaged consumer goods and pharmaceuticals. Big 3 Products works with leading manufacturers to design and produce custom returnable packaging to integrate with their assembly processes. Big 3 Mold is a global leader in the design and manufacture of blow mold tools. Hallink Moulds is a leader in innovative injection blow mold tooling and is a leading supplier of blow molds and change parts to the food, beverage, healthcare and chemical industry. Hallink specializes in the design, development and manufacture of 2-step stretch blow molds, and related components for the stretch blow molding industry offering integrated turnkey solutions to its customers worldwide.
In 2020, we combined all businesses associated with the Eberhard Manufacturing Company and The Illinois Lock Company to create Eberhard, a global leader in the engineering and manufacturing of access and security hardware. Eberhard offers a standard product line of rotary latches, compression latches, draw latches, hinges, camlocks, key switches, padlocks, and handles among other products, as well as comprehensive development and program management services for custom electromechanical and mechanical systems designed for specific original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”) and customer applications. Eberhard’s products are found in an expansive range of applications and products globally.
Velvac is the premier designer and manufacturer of proprietary vision technology for OEMs and aftermarket applications, and a leading provider of aftermarket components to the heavy-duty truck market in North America. Velvac serves diverse, niche segments within the heavy- and medium-duty truck, motorhome, and bus markets.
Diversified Products
The Diversified Products segment consists of Frazer & Jones; Greenwald Industries (“Greenwald”); and Argo EMS (formerly Argo Transdata). Frazer & Jones designs and manufactures high quality ductile and malleable iron castings. Products include valves, torque screws, bean clamps and concrete anchors. These products are sold to a wide range of industrial markets, including the oil, water and gas; truck/automotive rail, and military/aerospace. The Company believes that Frazer & Jones is the largest and most efficient producer of expansion shells for use in supporting the roofs of underground mines in North America. Greenwald designs, manufactures and markets payment systems and coin security products used primarily in the commercial laundry market. Greenwald’s products include timers, drop meters, coin chutes, money boxes, meter cases, mobile payment apps, smart cards, value transfer stations, smart card readers, card management software, and access control units. Argo EMS supplies printed circuit boards and other electronic assemblies to OEMs in various industries, including measurement systems, semiconductor equipment manufacturing, and industrial controls, medical and military products.
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Human Capital
We believe our success depends on the skills, experience, and industry knowledge of our key talent. As such, our management team places significant focus and attention on the attraction, development, and retention of employees, as well as ensuring our corporate culture reflects Eastern’s values, and our Board of Directors (our “Board) provides oversight for various employee initiatives. Eastern values and Code of Business Conduct and Ethics guide our actions, reflect our culture, and drive our performance. We have made and continue to make investments in training and we have well-established performance management process.
The health and safety of our employees is also a top priority. Our focus on the reduction of injuries and illnesses has significantly improved our safety performance. We have attained these improvements by fostering a global safety culture supported with regular training and education that includes robust systems and philosophies centered on personal responsibility and accountability. The Board established an Environment, Health and Safety Committee in 2019. There is a high-level of leadership engagement, ensuring installation and maintenance of appropriate safety equipment at all of our manufacturing sites worldwide combined with vigorous reviews of root causation and systemic corrective actions of any safety incidents that may occur.
In response to the emergence of COVID-19 in early 2020, we implemented a proactive internal procedure and complied with local, federal and international governmental guidance that has enabled us to operate safely. Each of our facilities continues to adhere to these practices, and we have also adjusted our remote worker safety procedures to ensure that remote employees are better integrated into our safety and health systems.
An engaged, innovative, skilled, and collaborative workforce is critical to our continued leadership in the design and manufacture of unique engineered solutions to industrial markets. We operate globally under policies and programs that provide competitive wages, benefits, and terms of employment. We are committed to efforts to increase diversity and foster an inclusive work environment that supports our global workforce through recruiting efforts and equitable compensation policies.
Employee levels are managed to align with business demand and management believes it currently has sufficient human capital to operate its business successfully. As of January 2, 2021, we employed 1,323 full-time employees; 788 in the United States and 535 in other countries. Approximately 53% of employees in the United States are represented by collective bargaining agreements. We believe that our relations with employees, unions and works’ councils are good.
General
Patent and trademark protection for the various product lines of the Company is limited, but the Company believes patents and trademark protection is sufficient to protect the Company’s competitive positions. Patent durations are from 3 to 20 years. No business segment is dependent on any patent nor would the loss of any patent have any material adverse effect on the Company’s business.
During the fourth quarter of 2020, the Company announced certain organizational changes that will impact our future internal reporting and reportable segments. As a result of these changes, we have combined the Illinois Lock Company and Dongguan Reeworld Security Products, Ltd. with the former Industrial Hardware segment to form the Engineered Solutions Segment. We have also combined the Frazer & Jones Company, Greenwald Industries, and Argo EMS to form the Diversified Products segment.
The Engineered Solutions and Diversified Product segments will be the reportable segments in 2020. These changes are effective for financial reporting purposes from the beginning of fiscal year 2020.
See Note 12, Reportable Segments , in Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data , for our financial information by segment.
Neither of the Company’s segments is seasonal.
Customers for both segments are broad-based by geography and by market, and sales are generally not highly concentrated by customer. Foreign sales were not significant.
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The Company encounters competition in both its business segments. Imports from Asia and Latin America with favorable currency exchange rates and low-cost labor have created additional pricing pressure. The Company competes successfully by offering high quality custom engineered products on a timely basis. To compete, the Company deploys internal engineering resources, maintains cost effective manufacturing capabilities through its wholly-owned Asian subsidiaries, expands its product lines through product development and acquisitions, and maintains sufficient inventory for fast turnaround of customer orders.
The Company does not anticipate that compliance with federal, state or local environmental laws or regulations are likely to have a material effect on the Company’s capital expenditures, earnings or competitive position.
The Company obtains materials from nonaffiliated domestic, Asian affiliated and Asian nonaffiliated sources. Raw materials and outside services were affected by COVID-19 for some of the Company’s businesses during the first six months of 2020. We expect raw materials and outside services to be readily available in 2021 and the foreseeable future, unless resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic occurs, which could cause further disruptions in our supply chain.
The Company’s ratio of working capital to sales was 29.6% in 2020 and 28.1% in 2019. Working capital includes cash held in various foreign subsidiaries. With the passage of 2017 tax legislation cash previously held in foreign countries can be repatriated back to the United States and used for other business needs thus reducing working capital needs further. Other factors affecting working capital include our average days’ sales in accounts receivable, inventory turnover ratio and payment of vendor accounts payable. In some cases, the company must hold extra inventory due to extended lead time in receiving products ordered from our foreign subsidiaries to ensure product is available for our customers. The Company continues to monitor working capital needs with the goal of reducing our ratio of working capital to sales.
Available Information
The Company makes available, free of charge through its Internet website at http://www.easterncompany.com , its annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), as soon as reasonably practicable after such material is electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC. The Company’s reports filed with, or furnished to, the SEC are also available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.