Some 560 jobs in Clearwater and Largo may be saved in the sale of Maxxim Medical's assets to two Illinois companies.
By HELEN HUNTLEY
Published October 29, 2003
CLEARWATER - Two Illinois companies have agreed to pay $101-million to buy the major assets of Maxxim Medical Inc. in a bankruptcy-court auction.
Medline Industries Inc. of Mundelein, Ill., is acquiring Maxxim's surgical and medical products businesses, including a Clearwater plant that assembles surgical procedure trays. RoundTable Healthcare Partners of Lake Forest, Ill., is acquiring Maxxim's vascular products business, which is in Athens, Texas. Medline officials said they will keep the Clearwater facility and promised to make a "significant investment" to upgrade and improve the company's operations and customer service. Maxxim employs about 560 people at the Clearwater plant and a corporate office in Oldsmar.
Medline, which had sales of more than $1.5-billion last year, said the Maxxim units will be a good fit with its business of manufacturing and distributing medical supplies. The company also said it will honor Maxxim's existing contracts and continue using many of Maxxim's brand names.
Maxxim was a public company during the 1990s, then went private in 1999 in a management buyout. The buyout debt was more than the company could handle, leading to a filing in February for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. Last month the company said it had agreed to sell its assets to Lightyear Capital, a private equity investment firm in New York. This week the Medline-RoundTable partnership outbid Lightyear.
