Victor Dixon is the new CEO of LL Flex LLC, a packaging company in Louisville.
There are big changes on the horizon for Louisville-based LL Flex LLC.
The Louisville-based packaging manufacturer recently got a new CEO, Victor Dixon, and saw a sister company divested by its private-equity parent.
LL Flex, owned by New York City-based private equity firm Centre Lane Partners, manufactures a number of consumer and industrial goods that use aluminum.
For decades, it has made the foil and paper packaging that wraps cigarette packs for various brands. But in recent years it has sought to diversify its product offering to include other aluminum-based products, such as insulation for the construction industry and heavy-duty wraps that go around undersea data cables. Today tobacco product packaging is 57 percent of its business; building and construction is 20 percent; and wire and cable is 15 percent, Dixon said. The balance is made up of other products.
Dixon is a veteran of the packaging industry, recently working as president and chief operating officer of Rondo-Pak, a Norristown, Pa.-based company that specializes in pharmaceutical packaging.
He’s got a lot on his plate, particularly considering the current economic climate.
Dixon said LL Flex is paying more to suppliers because of tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum. He’s in favor of what the Trump administration is trying to accomplish with the tariffs — more U.S. aluminum and steel production. But in the short term, the supplier base isn’t there to support the needs of companies in his industry.
“We are right in the thick of this whole tariff issue,” he said.
In addition to tariff concerns, Dixon comes to Louisville at a time when Centre Lane Partners is changing its strategy in regard to this industry.
LL Flex until recently had been a part of Oracle Packaging, another business owned by Centre Lane. In June, it sold Oracle Packaging’s seal and specialty lamination business (the aforementioned sister company) based in Winston-Salem, N.C.
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If you visit LL Flex’s facility in Louisville, you’d notice Oracle Packaging’s name is still on the door. But that’s changing after this sale.
The company is being rebranded as LL Flex, a name it had prior to being paired up with Oracle, he said. The sale of the Oracle business is expected to benefit operations here in Louisville. Centre Lane is redeploying capital from the sale of Oracle into the Louisville plant, said Dixon. The company already has staked out space in its facility for new equipment. And it plans to hire 10 to 12 workers during this year.
LL Flex has 108 employees now, many of whom are represented by one of three unions: the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the United Steelworkers.
The company generates about $100 million in annual revenue. It has 300 to 400 clients at any given time, some of which are more active than others.
Written by By David A. Mann – Reporter, Louisville Business First
Original article appeared on Louisville Business First