Watertown company lays off 22

BY MARC SILVESTRINI, REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

PM Engineered Solutions Inc. of Watertown laid off 22 workers two days before Christ­mas, the chief executive and part-owner of the company con­firmed Friday. The company was forced to reduce its payroll because of the struggling economy’s effect on orders, but does not antici­pate making any further job cuts, said CEO Wayne Frerichs of Andover, Mass.

The company has about 150 employees and is still seeking to fill a number of management and corporate planning posi­tions, Frerichs said. He also said he has “absolute­ly no intention” of either closing the company or moving it, cit­ing the “significant investment” the owners have made both in the company and in the Com­mercial Street location.

PM Engineered Solutions is the new name of Engineered Sinterings & Plastics Inc. of 140 Commercial St., Watertown, and its former sister company, Alves Precision Engineered Products Inc., of 58 Commer­cial St.

The two local companies were acquired in a bankruptcy sale on Sept. 5 by Wakefield Thermal Solutions of Pelham, N.H., and Longroad Asset Man­agement LLC, a private equity firm based in Stamford, and combined into one operating entity.

Frerichs is CEO and part­owner of PM Engineered Solu­tions, Wakefield Thermal Solutions and Simon Industries Inc. of Cary, N.C.

The company is now attempt­ing to sell the original 35,000­square-foot Alves Precision headquarters at 58 Commercial St. and move both work forces into the 175,000-square-foot former Engineered Sinterings & Plastics, or ESP, building at 140 Commercial St., Frerichs said. A parking lot and a second unimproved lot at the end of Commercial Street are also part of the sale, he said.

ESP was founded as Ameri­can Sinterings in 1952 by Alexander L. Alves.

The company’s name was changed to ESP and it was re­located to Watertown in the mid-’60s.

ESP was a powdered metal and plastics molding compa­ny, while Alves Precision was a precision machining and manufacturing company.

The companies’ former owners filed papers seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy pro­tection from their creditors on July 1, and converted to a Chapter 7 liquidation on Oct. 20.