UTEX Industries is a provider of sealing products and services, catering primarily to the oil extraction, natural gas, and water distribution markets, along with other industrial businesses. It is the largest rubber molder in the Southern United States.
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History
The company was founded on July 2, 1940 as Universal Packing & Gasket, a fabricator of gaskets and packings. Today, UTEX is a global concern headquartered in Houston, Texas with distributors in over 50 countries. It has several manufacturing facilities, which are located in the Texas cities of Houston, Odessa, Conroe, and Weimar.
Business
Together with its subsidiaries, Applied Rubber Technology and AccuSeal, both acquired in the 1990s, UTEX makes a range of sealing products, including gaskets, gasket sheets, proprietary high-tech O-rings, molded packings and seals for reciprocating pumps, hydraulics, mechanical seals, braided packings, and custom rubber-molded products. They also offer repairs for mechanical seals through a program called X-TendaSeal Services.
UTEX uses compression molding, transfer molding and injection molding to manufacture rubber and thermoplastic seals and components of up to 80 inches (2.0 m) in diameter. This includes rubber-coated fabric, rubber to metal, and rubber to plastic.
Ownership
UTEX was originally acquired for $41.9 million in August 2005 by Grey Mountain Partners, a private equity firm. They then sold UTEX to Audax Group, a middle-market investment capital firm, in 2007 for $92 million. In December 2010, Utex was acquired by global private equity firm Rhone Group for an undisclosed amount. On March 6, 2013, Utex was acquired by private equity firm Riverstone Holdings LLC.