Banner Gets Into the Mold

Banner Capital Management has agreed to acquire Seaway Plastics Engineering, together with its MME Group and Wright Engineered Plastics businesses, from ICG. Healthcare private equity firm Seventeen Capital is co-investing alongside Banner. The businesses will operate under a new holding company, Seaway Group.

The transaction gives Seaway its third private equity owner in just over a decade. Tonka Bay Equity Partners acquired the company in 2015 and sold it to ICG in June 2022.

Seaway Plastics Engineering (Seaway) makes precision-molded plastic and silicone components and assemblies, chiefly for medical device manufacturers. Led by CEO Kevin Stevens, the company is headquartered in Port Richey, Florida, about 35 miles northwest of Tampa, and operates five facilities in Florida, California and Minnesota.



Seaway designs and builds aluminum and steel molds, produces parts using plastic injection molding and liquid silicone rubber molding, and provides finishing and assembly services. It works with more than 700 types of resin and specializes in production runs of 100 to 10,000 pieces. Silicone is commonly used in medical device seals, valves and tubing because of its flexibility and heat resistance.



Its capabilities include welding, heat staking, machining, painting, two-shot molding and insert molding. Two-shot molding combines two materials in a single part, while insert molding forms plastic around a component such as a metal fitting.

Seaway operates more than 35,000 square feet of ISO Class 7 and Class 8 cleanroom space. Its plants hold ISO 13485 certification, the quality management standard for medical device manufacturing. Beyond healthcare, the company serves aerospace and defense, consumer products and precision industrial customers.

Seaway was founded as Seaway Molding in Detroit in 1973 by brothers Len and Jerry Bahalo. The company moved to Port Richey in 1984 and was acquired by Tim Smock and Paul Bernard in 1996. In 2012, they acquired Excalibur Manufacturing, adding more than 30,000 square feet of warehouse and manufacturing space in Brooksville, Florida. Seaway was acquired by Tonka Bay in 2015.



Under Tonka Bay, Seaway acquired California-based Wright Engineered Plastics in 2020. ICG’s North American Direct Private Equity team acquired Seaway in June 2022. Three months later, Seaway acquired MME Group, a Minnesota-based contract manufacturer of molded medical and engineered products.

Salt Lake City-based Seventeen Capital was co-founded in 2021 by Ron Labrum, a medical device industry executive who has served as a senior healthcare advisor to Banner Capital since 2025. Mr. Labrum will become executive chairman of Seaway Group when the transaction closes.

[caption id="attachment_241692" align="alignright" width="120"] Ron Labrum[/caption]

“While there will be more to share after closing, we could not be more excited about the strong foundation Seaway and the existing leadership team have established,” said Mr. Labrum. “Seaway is a trusted outsourced design and manufacturing partner to leading medical device OEMs, with facilities across the country and capabilities in precision injection molding, liquid silicone rubber, and complex assembly. We look forward to growing that footprint and capability set to serve even more of our customers’ expanding needs and evolving device portfolios.”

Medical device OEMs—original equipment manufacturers—design and sell finished devices under their own names. Many outsource some or all of their manufacturing to specialists such as Seaway.

[caption id="attachment_241670" align="alignright" width="120"] Tanner Ainge[/caption]

“The medical device supply chain is a mission-critical part of the healthcare system with resilient demand,” said Tanner Ainge, Banner’s founder and CEO. “Patients and providers depend on it, and OEMs depend on outsourced partners that can design and manufacture with precision. Seaway Group is a great fit with Banner’s focus on durable, essential businesses, and we are especially pleased to build it alongside Ron Labrum, a longstanding senior healthcare advisor to Banner, whose experience will be central to Seaway Group’s next chapter.”

Estimates of the US medical device contract manufacturing market range from $17 billion to $31 billion, according to Grand View Research and Fortune Business Insights. Grand View projects annual growth of nearly 14% through 2033. The industry is fragmented, ranging from single-plant molders to global contract development and manufacturing organizations, or CDMOs.



Larger participants in the sector include Integer Holdings, a Texas-based CDMO with $1.9 billion in annual revenue that has agreed to be acquired by KKR at an enterprise value of $5.7 billion, and Viant, a Massachusetts-based medical device manufacturer with approximately 7,000 employees that has been backed by JLL Partners and Water Street Healthcare Partners since 2016. Another major participant is Phillips Medisize, a CDMO with more than 60 years of history owned by Molex, a subsidiary of Koch Industries.

Banner Capital invests $15 million to $60 million of equity in founder-led and family-owned businesses in the Western United States with EBITDA of $4 million to $15 million. Its target sectors include commercial and household services, industrial and critical services, and specialty services such as the healthcare supply chain.

Seaway Group is the third platform investment for Banner Capital Fund II LP, which launched in 2025 with a $200 million target. Banner formed Western Pavement Services in April 2025 through its acquisition of Arizona-based Roadrunner Paving and Asphalt Maintenance. In 2026, the fund launched Roof Restoration Group, a commercial roofing and exterior services platform.

Banner Capital was founded in 2020 and is headquartered in Lehi, Utah, with an additional office in Phoenix.

ICG is a London-based alternative asset manager with approximately $126 billion of assets under management across private debt, credit and equity. Its North American Direct Private Equity team made its first investment in June 2021 with the acquisition of Gil-Bar Industries, a heating, ventilation and air conditioning business.

The acquisition of Seaway is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026.