Protective Industrial Products, Inc. (“PIP®”), a leading supplier of hand protection and PPE to the industrial, construction, and retail markets, proudly announces the acquisition of Primax Manufacturing & Trading, Inc. (“Primax”) and its innovative Caiman® brand, headquartered in La Mirada, CA. PIP® is a portfolio company of Audax Private Equity (“Audax”).

For more than 25 years, the Caiman® brand has become synonymous with innovation in high performance gloves and protective clothing for welders, utility, and ranch workers by offering premium products with unique patented design features.

"For PIP®, the addition of Caiman® products increases our penetration with customers in demanding markets such as welding and utilities. The acquisition will help to strengthen the value we offer to our distributors. Despite global headwinds, we continue to work hard to make the right acquisitions to better serve our customers by providing a leading portfolio of PPE," said Joe Milot, President and CEO of PIP®.

“We are very excited to join the PIP® global family,” states Gene Hong, President and Founder of Primax. "We had reached an important inflection point and had our eyes open to identifying the ‘next best move’. When we started speaking with the team at Audax and realized they shared PIP®’s vision for growth based on expanding opportunities for customers, I knew we had found the right partners.”

This latest acquisition adds the strength of the premium Caiman® brand to PIP®'s current line of trusted Ironcat® welding PPE, and significantly expands PIP®'s offering of high-performance gloves to welding professionals and utility workers. Primax is another example of PIP®'s successful acquisition strategy, which remains anchored in providing more value and opportunity for its distributor partners.

Additional information about PIP® is available at www.pipusa.com.