Hillenbrand Inc. entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Schenck Process Food and Performance Materials (FPM) business, a portfolio company of Blackstone.

FPM specializes in the design, manufacturing, and service of, among other technologies, feeding, filtration, baking, depositing, milling, and material handling equipment, and systems for the food, plastics, chemicals, and construction material industries. At closing, FPM will become a part of Coperion’s Food, Health & Nutrition Division, joining previous acquisitions Linxis Group, Peerless, and Gabler.

Coperion’s Food, Health & Nutrition Division is composed of brands including Bakon, Coperion K-Tron, Diosna, Gabler Engineering, Peerless, Shaffer, Shick Esteve, Unifiller, and VMI that serve customers in more than 100 countries. Key brands of FPM such as Baker Perkins, Kemutec, and Raymond Bartlett Snow (RBS) will join the Coperion brands in providing technologies and solutions across a variety of end markets.

The FPM business is highly complementary to the equipment and solutions currently offered by Coperion. Coperion will benefit from scale in attractive food categories, including pet food and alternative proteins, as well as plastics and chemicals, and will be able to offer more value to global customers through FPM’s highly engineered processing solutions and proprietary technology portfolio.

“FPM’s strong brands and deep expertise directly align with the growth strategy of Coperion’s Food, Health & Nutrition Division. This acquisition builds on the momentum generated over the last twelve months as Coperion has built up its strategic strength in the food end market and expanded its footprint, enabling our team to provide more solutions to customers around the world. For our polymer, chemicals, and minerals business, this acquisition means an expansion of our existing product portfolio, and we will be able to offer our customers even better solutions”, said Ulrich Bartel, president of Coperion.

“We are excited to have a partner in Coperion that shares our commitment to providing leading solutions and service to customers that exceed their needs,” Jay Brown, President of FPM. “This acquisition provides global growth opportunities this transaction presents and I am confident that by combining our complementary strengths, we will be able to offer enhanced comprehensive processing solutions to customers around the world.”