Logic PD, a Twin Cities engineering firm with roots to the days when General Mills made toasters and pressure cookers, has been sold to a St. Louis investment firm that specializes in manufacturing-related holdings.
The buyer, Compass Group Equity Partners, in recent years has built a portfolio of firms that provide services, equipment and parts to manufacturers. Terms were not disclosed.
"It was a quick transaction," said Bruce DeWitt, the company's chief executive. "There was an easy meeting of minds on strategy between the leadership team and equity investors."
DeWitt and other executives will continue to lead the firm. Its new owners combined Logic PD with another one of its firms, Dayton, Ohio-based Manufactured Assemblies Corp., or MAC, to form Compass Electronics.
"Logic PD brings not only size and scale to our electronics platform, but greatly enhances our ability to serve our customers," John Huhn, managing partner of Compass Group, said in a statement.
DeWitt said the combination will help Logic PD do more work in the transportation and banking industries, where MAC has an established client base. Logic PD has a sizable roster of clients in aerospace, med-tech and agriculture.
In recent years, Eden Prairie-based Logic PD has developed a specialty in designing circuit boards and software that are used in products as diverse as defibrillators and basketballs. The firm, for instance, helped veterinary device maker Geissler Corp. develop a digital stethoscope to diagnose bovine respiratory disease.
"We're at the leading edge of the next level of processors and developing those into our modules," DeWitt said. "We incorporate so much more than we used to, so many [electronic] architectures and structures."
Logic PD started as a spinoff from General Mills, which for a time made appliances for mid-20th century homemakers. For years, the company operated from a former Studebaker factory in the North Loop near downtown Minneapolis. In 2016, its engineers and designers moved to its manufacturing site in Eden Prairie.
"Now our engineers watch what they design get manufactured and then realize, for manufacturability, for reduction in cost, what they can do to improve a product," DeWitt said. "That's been a blessing for our customers."
Evan Ramstad • 612-673-4241
