Sarasota company moves from public to private in $2.6B deal

One of largest publicly traded companies in the Sarasota-Bradenton region, Intertape Polymer Group, is going private in a $2.6 billion deal.

Intertape Polymer Group, which has a dual headquarters in Sarasota and Montreal, will delist from the Toronto Stock Exchange shortly, according to a statement. Additionally, it’s in the process of deregistering the company shares from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under the Exchange Act. 

The acquisition, in which an affiliate of Clearlake Capital Group L.P. bought Intertape Polymer Group for $40.50 a share, officially closed Tuesday, June 28. The $2.6 billion figure, according to a March statement that announced the deal, "represents a premium of approximately 82% to the closing price of IPG common shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange on March 7, 2022." Clearlake is based in Santa Monica, California. 

IPG develops, manufactures and sells various paper- and film-based pressure-sensitive and water-activated tapes, stretch and shrink films, protective packaging, woven and non-woven products, and packaging machinery for industrial and retail use. 

“We believe this transaction is a great next step in the evolution of our business as Clearlake has strong industry knowledge in the protective packaging and e-commerce ecosystems," IPG President and CEO Greg Yull says in the March statement. "Clearlake provides us the operational and financial resources to accelerate our acquisition strategy, as well as organic growth opportunities such as investing in product innovation, sustainability and market expansion. 

"We have built a scaled business serving a diverse set of growing end markets and have seen particularly strong growth in our large e-commerce segment," Yull continues. "Clearlake’s investment reflects its confidence in our people, processes and strategy, and this transaction will advance our vision of becoming a global leader in packaging and protective solutions. We believe this all-cash transaction represents an attractive return and provides certainty for our shareholder base.”

Melbourne Yull founded IPG in 1981 in Canada. The company added a headquarters in the region in 1997, in Bradenton. It outgrew that space and moved to Sarasota in 2013. It had $1.51 billion in revenue in 2021.