Addev Materials acquires ATL Corp: targeting global leadership in converted healthcare adhesives

Addev Materials, the Lyon-based mid-sized speciality materials group behind the ATL Corp acquisition

Founded in 2006 and based in Lyon, Addev Materials is a French mid-sized company (an ETI, between an SME and a large group) that distributes, custom-packages and converts high-performance materials — chemicals and consumables for aerospace and defence, adhesives and tapes for mobility, industry and healthcare, technical films and insulation for energy and electronics. Privately held, the group employs 800 people across 16 manufacturing sites in Europe, North America and Asia, with published annual revenue of EUR 210m. Its strategy rests on a stated purpose — converting industrial challenges into sustainable materials solutions — and a sustained external growth track record: after an acquisition in the Netherlands in spring 2024, the group chaired by Pascal Nadobny is aiming for global leadership in converting adhesives for the healthcare market.

ATL Corp, the Wisconsin medical adhesive converter

Founded in 1954 in Menomonee Falls, near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ATL — Adhesive Tape and Label — specialises in converting adhesive tapes and flexible materials: custom labels, single-use medical devices, die-cut adhesive components and multilayer laminations, with around 45 employees and published revenue of USD 15m. What sets it apart is as much regulatory as industrial: ISO 13485-certified, FDA-registered and cGMP-compliant (current good manufacturing practice), it manufactures in ISO cleanrooms, is a strategic member of Solventum's Premier Converter programme, and serves global names in healthcare and pharma — Stryker, ThermoFisher, Werfen. Continuity is at the heart of the published structure: this is a majority acquisition, and the two managers, Nick Maris and Jason Hynes, remain at the helm and become shareholders in the project.

What the press said about the Addev Materials–ATL Corp deal

The deal, announced in September 2024, was carried by the acquirer's international press release and covered by the Lyon business press. The three reference publications:

Why Addev Materials acquired ATL Corp, and why this target

For Addev Materials, the issue was leadership in a global niche: medical adhesive converting is a business where positions are built site by site, qualification by qualification — and the group, which already owned the UK healthcare converter Parafix, had no US footprint in this market. "[We are determined] to accelerate our international growth to become a global leader", said Pascal Nadobny, Chairman of Addev Materials — before explaining the mechanics: ATL's expertise combined with Parafix's know-how and the group's positioning to grow in the United States and Europe, plus regional synergies with its other Midwest sites, where the group already operates in mobility and industry.

On the target side, ATL brought what cannot be bought off the shelf: seventy years in the trade and, above all, the full regulatory toolkit of a medical device converter — ISO 13485 certification, FDA registration, cGMP compliance and the cleanrooms that go with them — validated by the most demanding customers there are, from Stryker to ThermoFisher and Werfen, and by strategic membership of its major materials supplier's programme. These qualifications take years to obtain and then to maintain, and they are the real barrier to entry in the sector: acquiring them ready-made, together with the management team that holds them — Nick Maris and Jason Hynes, retained as shareholders — is better than building them. The target's steady growth with leading medical device, biotech and pharma companies did the rest.

Medical materials converting: a global market in consolidation

This deal illustrates the consolidation of a discreet but critical link in healthcare value chains: between the major adhesive materials producers and the medical device manufacturers, qualified converters — able to print, die-cut and laminate in a cleanroom under ISO 13485, FDA and GMP standards — form a scarce pool that OEM customers are rationalising. Demand is structurally driven by ageing populations, single-use products and regulatory traceability; supply, meanwhile, is concentrating: major materials suppliers are narrowing their partner converter programmes, and European and US groups alike are building transcontinental networks to follow their global customers.

Finally, the deal tells a distinctive French growth story: a Lyon-based mid-sized company founded in 2006 that, acquisition after acquisition, has built 16 sites on three continents, and here reaches a milestone — its first US company in the healthcare market, its fifth site across the Atlantic, and a dedicated division within the group. The ownership transfer is typical of the US mid-market: a structured sale process run by the seller's adviser, and a deal structure that keeps the managers in place and invested — Menomonee Falls' jobs and know-how joining a European industrial project without losing their local roots.

Collaboration Capital's added value as buy-side adviser on the ATL Corp acquisition

On this deal, Collaboration Capital acted as buy-side adviser. A transatlantic acquisition in medical materials converting unfolds in four stages — and both the sector's regulatory intensity and the distance give each of them its own demands.