Spandex strengthens its foothold in the Australian market, adding two home-grown businesses to its expanding portfolio. From Plas Image in Sydney, to Qualsign in Perth, the double buy-out shores up the global sign and display suppliers' local offering from coast-to-coast, as well as adding a number of new products to its busy stable of wide-format signage media.
- Alex McClelland, managing director, Spandex Asia-Pacific
Spandex's local footprint will particularly benefit from Qualsign's WA operation, which is significantly larger than Spandex's existing state branch. The move is part of Spandex's mid to long term strategy to grow their market presence, which will include additional purchases down the line, in a bid to expand the company's breadth and depth of reach. Plas Image and Qualsign will continue to operate under their own names over the next year during which time their products, systems and customer-base will be fully integrated into the Spandex brand.
Alex McClelland, Spandex Asia-Pacific, managing director and vice president, said, “Real quality opportunities for acquisition do not come along that often and we were fortunate to find two this year that offered expansion into new product areas and adjacent markets. The addition of highly experienced industry people is another positive as we begin the task of integration.”
Plas Image was established in 2000 in Sydney’s Northern Beaches by Stan Vidiac, who was soon joined in partnership by Ed Oleksyn. Since then the brand had grown to be a major supplier of top-brand rigid media such as Gatorfoam, Kapa, ForeX, Fome-cor, Smart-X, FoamaLite and Printboard in addition to digital roll media from Metamark, ATP and their own OEM products.
Qualsign started up in 1995 as a distributor of aluminium composite sheets, cut vinyl and digital media, founded by Merv Hopkins in Perth. Before its purchase, Qualsign had developed a strong relationship with Spandex as a reseller of Arlon and Avery signage materials.
McClelland welcomes the staff and customers into the Spandex family, saying the purchases not only fill a number of gaps in its current product range but that Spandex will also benefit from the skills, experience and positive customer relationship cultures that both companies bring.