By Rick Moriarty | rmoriarty@syracuse.com

Read the article on Syracuse.com here.

Syracuse, N.Y. — The Allyn family spent a century making medical equipment and the past few years trying to transforma struggling section of downtown Syracuse.

Now, the Skaneateles family isbranching out into sports and beer.

It‘s bought a stake in Wrexham AFC, the Welsh soccer team that’s become a streaming and sports phenomenon thanks to its famous actor-owners, Ryan Reynolds (“Deadpool & Wolverine“) and Rob McElhenney (”It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia”).

The family connected with the actors through an investment adviser at JP Morgan, said Eric Allyn, manager and chief investment officer of the Allyn Family Office, which oversees the family’s for-profit investments.

The Wrexham owners were looking for investors like the Allyns — not some hedge fund, but a family group who knew how to run a company, he told syracuse.com | The Post-Standard.

The actors were also looking for a partner to invest in the city of Wrexham itself. The Allyns, who are behind Syracuse’s Salt City Market and the ongoing renovation of the Chimes Building, saw a lot of Syracuse in Wrexham.Both are industrial cities that have struggled to replace factories that left after World War II.

“Wrexham was a mining town, a steel town, working-class oriented with lots of breweries,” Allyn said. “Then the steel and mining collapsed and the breweries collapsed, and the city really collapsed in on itself.”

That‘s part of what led the Central New York family to invest and become friends with McElhenney and with Reynolds, whose “Deadpool & Wolverine” has hauled in more than $1 billion in global box office revenues.

The team announced Wednesday that it has sold a minority ownership in the club to the Allyns, who operated Welch Allyn Inc. in Skaneateles for more than 100 years until selling it in 2015 for $2 billion. The amount of the Allyns’ investment in the soccer team was not disclosed.

The next day,the family and the two actors announced their new venture has also acquired 80% of Wrexham Lager, a brewery in the same blue-color North Wales city where the soccer team plays.

Founded in 1882, Wrexham Lager is the oldest lager brewery still operating in the U.K. (It was the only lager served on the Titanic during its infamous voyage in 1912.)

In a joint statement, Reynolds and McElhenney said the Allyns were “exactly the type of partners” they need for Wrexham.

“Wrexham has earned the world’s attention and we are focused on bringing on board world-class partners to help with the next phase of our growth,” they said. “We have been fortunate to get to know the Allyn family and we are blown away by their intelligence, kindness and commitment.”

The investment was made through Red Dragon Ventures LLC, a joint venture formed between the Allyn family and the two actors. The amount of the investment in the teamwas not disclosed.

McElhenney and Reynolds made the soccer team famous by creating the “Welcome to Wrexham” television series streaming on Hulu and FX.

Through Welch-Allyn, the Allyns made diagnostic and monitoring medical equipment that ended up in hospitals and doctors offices nationwide.Since selling its medical equipment company, they have been seeking investments “that make a connection with our family,” Allyn said.

“We know we can’t reproduce Welch Allyn, but at least we can have investments we can connect to,” he said. “We love to invest in great companies.”

Allyn and his daughter, Kaleen Allyn, head of private market investing for the family, said they were immediately struck by the similarities between Syracuse and Wrexham.

Kaleen Allyn said her family believes the capital they and the two actors are investing in Wrexham Lager will help the brewery regain its former glory and expand into the United States.

“We really think it’s important to invest for strong economic returns and to uplift communities,” she said.

Since selling Welch Allyn to Hillrom Holdings Inc. nine years ago, the Allyn Family Foundation, the family’s philanthropic arm, has made two major investments on South Salina Street in downtown Syracuse: Salt City Market, a food hall and mixed-income housing development, and the Chimes Building, an office building it is transforming into 150 mixed-income apartments.