PALO ALTO, Calif. and DIXON, Ill. – Private equity firm Eigen Capital has completed the acquisition of Dixon, Ill.-based Plews Inc. (Plews & Edelmann), from British industrial conglomerate Tomkins plc.

Plews & Edelmann, founded more than 100 years ago, has a long established history and a diverse customer base of several thousand customers in the automotive aftermarket, industrial, marine, heavy-duty, hardware and home improvement markets. Plews & Edelmann products include power steering hose assemblies, precision-engineered brass fittings, air accessories, air hoses, tire repair, tire hardware, tire gauges, lubrication equipment and lubrication greases, oils and sprays. The company’s products are sold under the recognized brands of Amflo, Camel, Tru-Flate, Syracuse, Edelmann, LubriMatic and the environmentally friendly, high-performance lubricant, UltraLube.

“We’re thrilled with the customer relationships that the company brings, most of which go back decades,” said Eigen Capital’s Partner Christophe Mallard. “It is a very high-quality asset that exhibits both the kind of undisputable market leadership and product expertise that you would expect from a long-established business, as well as an extraordinarily innovative mindset, evidenced in particular in the unique growth potential of the UltraLube bio-based lubricants. We see tremendous opportunities and look forward to working with Plews’ current, high-caliber management team and all of the highly skilled employees to take the company to ever greater achievements.”

“This is an exciting new chapter that is being written for Plews,” said Steve Venghaus, president of Plews Inc. “There is a lot of history here, and our expertise is the best possible foundation to keep serving our customers to the satisfaction of all. From the beginning, we felt the team at Eigen with their no-nonsense approach was the right one to support our plans to aggressively focus on growth and new product development like our UltraLube bio-based lubricants.”