Vander-Bend Manufacturing, a maker of metal products used in the medical device sector and a platform company of Aterian Investment Partners, has added Brian King to its board of directors as executive chairman.
Mr. King has a long and impressive medical device resume. He is the former president and CEO of private equity-owned Viant Medical, a provider of contract manufacturing services to the medical device industry. During his tenure leading Viant, the company quadrupled in size to $1 billion in annual revenues. Prior to Viant, Mr. King spent over a decade at Covidien, where he held positions of increasing responsibility including as group president of the company’s $2 billion emerging markets division and president of Covidien’s Asian operations.
Vander-Bend is a prototyper, developer, manufacturer, and assembler of large-format metal products used primarily in the medical technology sector. The company, led by CEO Greg Biggs, was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in San Jose, California with six facilities and 550,000 sq. ft. of combined manufacturing space.
Aterian acquired Vander-Bend in May 2018 and in December 2020 the company closed on the add-on acquisition of Swiss Precision Machining (SPM), a manufacturer of complex and tight tolerance consumable medical instrument components used in robotic surgery. SPM operates an 82,000 sq. ft. facility near Chicago in Wheeling, Illinois. The buy of SPM followed two earlier add-on acquisitions – TMK Manufacturing, a California-based provider of prototyping and machining services to medical technology companies (May 2020); and J.L. Haley Enterprises, a California-based fabricator of metal components used primarily in medical devices (January 2019).
All told, in its nearly four years of ownership of Vander-Bend, and in addition to the three add-on acquisitions, Aterian has also established and commercialized two new production facilities in Stockton and San Jose, California, completed substantial capital equipment expansion, and significantly invested in human capital throughout the organization. Vander-Bend now operates six facilities across the West Coast and Midwest and employs more than 900 people.
According to Aterian, the addition of Mr. King to the Vander-Bend board is highly strategic and will be instrumental to the future organic and acquisition growth of the business.
“Having Brian join the board as executive chairman is an exciting milestone for the business and a tremendous validation for Vander-Bend and everyone who works for the company,” said Mr. Biggs. “During my more than three decades at Vander-Bend, I’ve had the pleasure of being part of the company’s development from a single-site, family-run organization into an industry-leading, multi-site organization with nearly a thousand employees and unmatched capabilities, and yet all of us at Vander-Bend know there is still so much more we can accomplish. I am truly delighted to have Brian as a teammate on this unfolding journey.”
“We are thrilled to add Brian to the Vander-Bend team as executive chairman,” said Brandon Bethea, a co-founder and partner at Aterian. “When we decided to establish this position, Brian was immediately our first choice. He has a unique blend of differentiated strategic insight, deep industry experience as well as a demonstrated track record of success at each stop in his career.”
“I am excited to join the board of Vander-Bend,” said Mr. King. “Vander-Bend is a special company with a tremendous set of growth opportunities in front of it. Vander-Bend also has terrific people which is the hallmark of any great organization. Greg and his team’s passion for the business, paired with the Aterian teams’ enthusiastic support, is certainly infectious. I look forward to working closely with both Vander-Bend and Aterian as we focus on the company’s continued evolution into a world-class operation.”
Mr. King is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, he holds a master’s degree in civil engineering from Penn State and has an MBA from Harvard University.
Aterian invests from $10 million to $100 million in middle market businesses with $50 million to $750 million in revenue and $10 million to $50 million in EBITDA. The firm’s latest fund, Aterian Investment Partners IV LP, closed in October 2021 with $830 million of committed capital. Aterian has offices in New York City and Coral Gables, Florida.
© 2022 Private Equity Professional | March 4, 2022
