Rogers Corp [NYSE:ROG] is debt-free, has an acquisition roadmap of 21 sponsor-backed companies and wants to move quickly when the owners ultimately decide to sell, President and CEO Randall Colin Gouveia said.

An in-house corporate development team that includes investment banking experience is working with various company divisions to source M&A targets, and also receives a steady stream of inbound interest from potential sellers, he said.

The Chandler, Arizona-based maker of engineered materials and components for automotive, electronics and other applications is actively engaged with the private equity ownership of all of the target firms, Gouveia told this news service.

“A lot of the properties that we’re looking at and dealing with, their sponsors would like to see improved results to make up for the challenging macro that impacted a lot of companies last year,” he said on the sidelines of a recent conference.

Interest in the targets is pending due diligence, he qualified.

Rogers has completed six acquisitions during the past eight years and plans to continue to exercise discipline and patience, the executive said.

“We really understand what we’re looking for in terms of return on investment and how we would deploy our capital,” Gouveia said.

The company will “stick to our model and try to buy the property that makes sense, but we would not want to overpay,” he added.

Rogers provides materials for products like high-end mobile devices and on-board automotive radar systems. Other applications include aerospace and defense, wireless and network infrastructure, medical, printing, renewables and transportation, the company’s website shows.

Ideal targets will likely have between USD 50m and USD 100m in revenue, but potentially higher in the case of “the right target,” CFO Ram Mayampurath said during a presentation at the B. Riley Institutional Investor Conference on 23 May.

During his nine years at the company, every acquisition has fallen into that revenue range, he said.

In addition to increasing free cash generation, wiping out debt was a top priority for 2023, given the high-interest-rate environment. “Plus, inorganic growth is a key part of our growth strategy and we borrow money for acquisitions,” Mayampurath told investors.

The breadth of product offerings means there are a wide range of companies and technologies that potentially fit with Rogers’ product and regional strategies, he said.

Ideal targets will be “Rogers-like” companies with high margins, price stability and differentiation, according to the CFO.

He cited the example of Rogers’ last acquisition, the purchase of Lancashire, UK-based silicone rubber materials maker Silicone Engineering, announced in October 2021.

That deal – for which terms were not disclosed – provided Rogers with a different kind of silicone formulation and gave it a presence in a new geography. “Acquisitions like that – bolt-ons more is what we look for,” Mayampurath said.

A combination of no debt and relatively “flat organization” gives Rogers nimbleness to act swiftly on opportunities. “When the right property becomes available, we can move quickly,” CEO Gouveia told the investors.

Rogers has a market cap of about USD 2.2bn.