Hillman Group acquires TagWorks

The Hillman Group has announced the acquisition of TagWorks, a pet ID tag program, for $40 million in cash plus an additional consideration of $12.5 million on Oct. 31, 2011. TagWorks is responsible for paying $18.5 million in outstanding debt and transaction fees from the proceeds. The deal closed on March 16. 

Founded in 2007 by George Hagen, TagWorks provides its patent-pending program to Petsmart. In conjunction with the agreement, The Hillman Group is entering into a 17-year agreement with KeyWorks-KeyExpress LLC, a company affiliated with TagWorks, to assign its retail key program technology to The Hillman Group.

Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, The Hillman Group, an affiliate of the Hillman Companies, distributes more than 60,000 SKUs of fasteners, key duplication systems, engraved tags and related hardware to over 20,000 retail customers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America and Australia.