Sarasota manufacturer acquires Largo firm

SARASOTA — Octex Corp., a precision plastic injection-molding firm that's grown significantly in the last five years, acquired Largo-based Choice Tool & Mold.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Choice Tool & Mold specializes in plastic injection molds, contract precision machining and mold design and development, according to a release. The firm, with 19 employees, was founded in 1996.

Octex, based in Sarasota, specializes in making customized plastic components. Clients range from consumer products to aerospace firms. The company, with 85 employees and more than $20 million in annual sales, has invested more than $10 million in its Sarasota facilities over the past few years.

“With Choice Tool & Mold's technical expertise, innovative spirit and precision manufacturing capabilities as an integral part of our equation, we'll now have more ability than ever before to grow and create within the areas of nascent, medical and micro technologies which are expanding at a rapid pace,” Octex CEO Jim Westman says in the statement. “That expansion has created a strong need for manufacturing that can meet the increasingly complex and miniaturized demands of the parts required to make them operate.”

A former Atlanta investment banker, Westman bought Octex in 2010, when it had about $8 million a year in annual sales and 48 employees.