A firm from Bahrain now owns a Sterling distribution site used by the Wachusett Chip brand, after purchasing it for $10.6 million as part of a larger nine-property deal.
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A firm from Bahrain now owns a Sterling distribution site used by the Wachusett Chip brand, after purchasing it for $10.6 million as part of a larger nine-property deal.
The New York office of Investcorp, a company based in the Persian Gulf island nation’s capital city of Manama, bought the site on Jan. 12 from an entity managed by Wakefield-based NorthBridge Partners, according to Worcester District Registry of Deeds records.
The site is a distribution center by Pennsylvania-based Utz Quality Food. In 2011, Utz purchased Wachusett Potato Chip Co., the Fitchburg-based firm founded in the 1930s. The company has continued producing chips under the Wachusett brand and recipe since the purchase.
Utz will continue to utilize the Sterling property under its new ownership, according to a Thursday email from Colleen Farley, vice president, government relations and external communications at Utz. The company first signed a lease for the site in 2012, according to real estate data firm CoStar.
The two-story, 60,000-square-foot building at 13 Chocksett Road was built in 2005, according to Town of Sterling property records. Northbridge purchased it for $4.2 million in 2021. It received a 2026 tax assessment value of $4.18 million.
The sale was part of a nine-property, $158-million deal between Investcorp and Northbridge involving other industrial sites in Mansfield, North Andover, Woburn and Avon, as well as properties in New Jersey and Maryland, according to CoStar.
Investcorp is a global investment firm founded in 1982, with the intent of connecting the Gulf region with the global economy, according to its website. It has $60 billion in assets under management.
Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the real estate and banking & finance industries. 
