Investors acquire Clearwater textile brand Pellon

What makes a quilt soft, gives a jacket its shape or adds cushioning to furniture often goes unnoticed. But for generations of people who sew, one name has been hard to miss: Pellon, recently acquired by a Tampa Bay investment group that scooped the 75-year-old textile brand and plans to expand its reach beyond the sheer sewing aisle.

PCP Ventures LLC acquired Pellon Oct. 1 through a bankruptcy process. The company employs approximately 95 people at its 220,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Clearwater.

Adam Schoenbaum and Ron Ciganek lead PCP Ventures, an investment group representing family offices with combined assets approaching $1 billion.

Schoenbaum, who also owns a women’s dress company down the road from Pellon, said his interest in the acquisition came from his familiarity with manufacturing and the strength of its name.

The company makes interfacings, stabilizers, quilt batting, fiberfill, foams and other specialty textiles. They are the materials sewn or placed between layers of fabric to provide shape, support and cushioning.

Amy Berg, Pellon’s vice president of sales, puts it more simply. The batting is “the cushy part” of a quilt, one example of what the company calls the “magic in the middle” – the materials hidden between layers of fabric that give finished products their shape and structure.

Pellon’s history dates to 1950, when the trademark was developed in connection with Freudenberg, a German pioneer in nonwoven textiles. Its early products offered garment makers an alternative to the stiff canvases and haircloth traditionally used to reinforce clothing.

The brand became so familiar to home sewists that Pellon is often used as a generic term for interfacing.

Its products are sold at Walmart, Michaels and Hobby Lobby, as well as through distributors supplying more than 5,000 stores worldwide.

Despite the bankruptcy, Schoenbaum sees room for growth in what he described during the interview as a $27 billion industry.

The first order of business is upgrading the Clearwater operation. “Big capital investments in machinery. That’s our phase one,” Schoenbaum said.

Berg said changes are already underway, particularly in manufacturing: improvements involving the company’s needle-punch production line, along with expanded drop-shipping capabilities and technology upgrades. Office renovations are also underway.

“I’ve seen Pellon through a lot of transitions,” said Berg, who has worked at the company for 15 years.

“The changes [Schoenbaum] has made are extremely positive. Everyone is very excited and the improvements noticeable already.”

Beyond the factory, Pellon is looking to reach more customers in home décor and other categories. Berg said the company is expanding its drapery and lining products, areas where its existing materials can serve additional uses. “We have the most depth and breadth of products in the market,” she said.

In the company’s acquisition announcement, Schoenbaum said the goal is to build on the trust Pellon has earned rather than change what customers already value.

PCP Ventures describes itself as an evergreen investor, but the purchase price and the amount planned for capital improvements were not disclosed.

“Pellon is more than a brand, we are family,” she said in a prepared statement. “We have team members who have been here for decades, and there’s a real sense of pride in what we do and the relationships we’ve built.”