reported sales of $1.8 billion in 2006, a 7 percent increase from 2005. Profit was $82.4 million. Fourth-quarter sales were $388 million. The Watsco network expanded by 28 locations in 2006.  ; More …
Ryerson Inc., Chicago, IL, reported sales of $5.9 billion for 2006, up 2.2 percent from 2005. Profit was $71.8 million, compared with $98.1 million in 2005. In the fourth quarter, Ryerson recorded a net loss of $4.4 million, compared with a profit of $6.3 million in 2005. Sales in the fourth quarter were $1.4 billion. Fourth-quarter volume slowdown was exacerbated by high inventories and a run-up in stainless steel prices due to nickel surcharges.More …
Barnes Group Inc. announced 2006 sales of $1.3 billion, up 14 percent from $1.1 billion in 2005. Profit was $73.8 million, up 54 percent from the year before. Sales for the fourth quarter were $328.8 million, up 19 percent from the prior-year period. Income was $18.5 million, up 83 percent. All three of Barnes’business units recorded double-digit sales growth in the fourth quarter. Full year 2006 sales at Barnes Distribution were $526.9 million, up 16 percent from $453.8 million in 2005. Fourth quarter 2006 sales at Barnes Distribution were $141.6 million, up 26 percent from the same period last year.  ; More …
Rexnord LLC, Milwaukee, WI, power transmission and water management products supplier, reported sales of $283.1 million for the third quarter ended Dec. 30, 2006, up 7 percent from the prior-year period. Order growth in the third quarter was 4.6 percent, slightly lower than the first six months of the fiscal year. The backlog sits at $386.6 million, 26 percent higher than the beginning of the fiscal year. In the first nine months of fiscal 2007, Rexnord recorded 11.8 percent sales growth to $869.6 million. More …
Saint-Gobain’s Building Distribution Sector has acquired Galvano Groothandel BV (the Netherlands), Schulte Tiefbau (Germany) and four companies belonging to the Norman group (Channel Isles). Those acquisitions, adding close to 200 million euros in sales on a yearly basis, illustrate the strategy of Saint-Gobain’s Building Distribution Sector to grow by bolt-on acquisitions. In 2006, Saint-Gobain’s Building Distribution Sector had sales of 17.5 billion euros. More …
Lone Star Fasteners, Houston, TX, has acquired LWD Precision Engineering Co. Ltd., a manufacturer of precision engineered components for the global oil and gas industry, for $6 million. LWD, based in Leeds, UK, manufactures precision machined components for valves, actuators and other related critical applications. The acquisition of LWD follows Lone Star’s June 2006 acquisition of Leeds-based Grange Gaskets, a provider of standard and specialty gaskets, and related machined parts. More …
Emerson, St. Louis, MO, sales for the first quarter ended Dec. 31, 2006,  ; were $5.1 billion, an increase of 11 percent over the $4.5 billion reported in the same period last year. Profit for the first  ; quarter increased 12 percent to $445 million. Underlying international sales increased 11 percent, including strong growth in Europe, Asia and Latin America. This quarter marked the first time that international sales were over 50 percent of total  ; sales.  ;   ; More …
Paris-based Rexel, a global electrical distributor, has filed regulatory documents with France’s market regulator,  ; AMF,  ; in the first step towards a possible listing of Rexel on Euronext Paris. Rexel was bought about two years ago by a group of private equity firms, including Merrill Lynch, Eurazeo and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. A spokesman for Rexel told Agence France-Presse that the filing made with the market regulator was a “statement of intent” with no set timetable, and that if it goes ahead, the IPO will be in April at the earliest. News reports offer different estimates of the value of the IPO, from 1 billion to 2 billion euros. Forbes says the offering will value Rexel at 6 billion-7 billion euros. Rexel was purchased by the private equity team for 3.7 billion euros. More …
Interline Brands, Jacksonville, FL, reported sales for fiscal 2006 increased 25 percent to $1.068 billion. Average organic daily sales grew 8.3 percent. Profit was $31.2 million in 2006, compared with $28.8 million in 2005. In the fourth quarter 2006, sales grew 30 percent to $67.3 million. Average organic daily sales growth was 2.6 percent. Interline’s facilities maintenance market, representing 60 percent of sales in the fourth quarter, grew 11.5 percent on an organic daily sales basis and 70 percent including AmSan. The pro contractor market, representing 25 percent of sales, declined 2.5 percent in the quarter. The specialty distributor market, representing 15 percent of sales, declined 7.9 percent. More …
Industrial Distribution Group, Inc., Atlanta, GA, reported sales of $547.9 million in 2006, up 2.9 percent on an organic basis. Profit was $6.8 million for 2006, compared with $5.4 million in 2005. Revenue for the fourth quarter 2006 was $131.6 million, a 1.1 percent increase from $130.1 million in 2005. Profit for the fourth quarter of 2006 was $1.9 million compared with the 2005 profit of $1.5 million. For the fourth quarter 2006, revenue from the Flexible Procurement Solutions(tm) (FPS) services was $80.5 million, or 61.2 percent of total revenue, reflecting a growth rate of 7.5 percent. More …
Praxair Inc., Danbury, CT, has agreed to buy The Linde Group’s industrial and medical gases business in Mexico. Linde’s Mexican business operates under the name of AGA S.A. de C.V. The transaction excludes the Mexican assets of the BOC Group, which Linde acquired as part of its acquisition of BOC. AGA S.A. de C.V. had sales of about $75 million in fiscal 2006. More …
Huttig Building Products, St. Louis, MO, distributor of millwork, building materials and wood products, has closed its distribution facility in Hauppauge, NY, as part of the company’s effort to downsize in response to the recent downturn in the housing market. About 30 jobs will be eliminated. Huttig has 41 distribution centers serving 46 states. More
HD Supply reported sales of $12.07 billion in fiscal 2006, an increase of 161.6 percent over 2005. Most of that growth was driven by the almost $4 billion in acquisitions made in the past year when HD Supply bought diversified distributor Hughes Supply for $3.4 billion. In the fourth quarter 2006, sales for HD Supply grew by 64.4 percent to $2.9 billion. In 2006, the retail division had sales of $79 billion, up 2.6 percent. Overall, sales at The Home Depot were $90.8 billion, 11.4 percent over last year, with profit steady at $5.8 billion. Comparable store sales for the year were down 2.8 percent. Home Depot had a slow fourth quarter, with profit falling 28 percent to $925 million from $1.3 billion last year. Sales in the fourth quarter were $20.3 billion overall, up 4 percent. Comparable store sales dropped 6.6 percent for the quarter. More …
Altra Holdings, Inc., Quincy, MA, has agreed to buy power-transmission product manufacturer TB Wood’s Corporation, Chambersburg, PA, for $24.80 a share. TB Wood’s, with sales of $118.9 million in 2006, will become a fully owned subsidiary of Altra. The acquisition broadens Altra’s coupling product line and adds engineered belted drive systems as well as adjustable speed electronic drives and systems. As a result of the merger, Altra revenues generated through distribution will grow by about 37 percent. More …
Ferguson has acquired Grif-Fab Corporation, a distributor and fabricator of fire protection systems with three locations in Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. In the year ended Nov. 30, 2006, Grif-Fab had revenue of $28.3 million. UK-based Wolseley plc, Ferguson’s parent company, has recently made three other bolt-on acquisitions in addition to the Grif-Fab buy. The four in total will add 29 million pounds, or $37.7 million, to annual revenues. Since Aug. 1, 2006, Wolseley has made 33 acquisitions in Europe and North America totaling 342 million pounds, or $458 million. More …
B & D Industrial, Macon, GA, a regional industrial distributor, has acquired Simco Technologies, an Atlanta-based distributor of industrial electronics, sensors, drives, motion control, machine safety and machine vision systems. The B & D Industrial holding company has 40 facilities in Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama. More …
US Electrical Services, LLC, Exton, PA, has agreed to buy Rahway Electric Supply Co., Inc. and its subsidiary Asbury Park Electric Supply. Rahway/Asbury has been supplying electrical contractors in Northern and Central New Jersey for almost 27 years.  ; More …
Privately-owned housing starts fell 14.3 percent in January, compared with the revised December estimate. Starts were down 37.8 percent below the January 2006 rate. By region, from December 2006: Northeast was up 8.9 percent; Midwest was down 15.2 percent; South was down 11.8 percent; and the West was down 28.5 percent. From January 2006, the Midwest, South and West all had dramatic decreases, with 47.2 percent, 37 percent and 42 percent drops respectively. In the Northeast, housing starts fell 18.7 percent year-over-year. More …
The Manufacturers
Canadian manufacturers ended  ; 2006  ; on a positive note as factory shipments increased for the second month in a row in December, thanks to strength in the transportation equipment sector. Yet total shipments for  ; 2006  ; as a whole edged down  ; 0.6% to  ; $587.4  ; billion from the peak level in  ; 2005. December’s increase was widespread, with  ; 13  ; sectors representing  ; 74% of total output improving. On a monthly basis, factories shipped goods worth an estimated  ; $49.7  ; billion in December, up  ; 1.7% from November. The transportation sector, led by automobiles, shipped  ; $10.2  ; billion worth of product in December, the first time in  ; 2006  ; that it had surpassed the $10-billion mark.
December  ; U.S. manufacturing technology consumption totaled $321.35 million, according to The Association For Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors’Association. This total, as reported by companies participating in the USMTC program, was down 6.9% from November, and down 0.5% from the total of $322.81 million reported for  ; December 2005. With a year-end total of $3,889.75 million, 2006 was up 26.8% compared with 2005. The previous year increase, from 2004-2005, was 8.4%
The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods declined 0.6 percent in January, seasonally adjusted, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported. At the earlier stages of processing, prices for intermediate goods moved down 0.7 percent compared with a 0.5-percent increase in the prior month. The crude goods index decreased 6.3 percent after rising 2.8 percent in December. Core inflation -excluding foods and energy -advanced 0.2 percent. More …
Genuine Parts Company, Atlanta, GA, reported sales in 2006 were $10.5 billion, up 7 percent compared to 2005. Net income for the year was $475.4 million, an increase of 9 percent from 2005. By division -Automotive: $5.185 billion in sales, up 3.4 percent; Motion Industries: $3.107 billion, up 11 percent; Office Products: $1.779 billion, up 7 percent; Electrical/Electronic: $408 million, up 19 percent. In the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, 2006, GPC sales increased 6 percent to $2.54 billion.  ; More …
Netherlands-based diversified distributor Hagemeyer NV reported sales of 6.22 billion euros (US$8.17 billion) in 2006. Organic growth was 11.5%. Profit for the year was 140 million euros (US$183.8 million), compared with a net loss of 58 million euros (US$76.1 million) last year. Overall organic growth in the Professional Products and Services division was 11.6%. More …
BlueLinx Holdings Inc., Atlanta, GA, distributor of building products, reported sales of $4.9 billion, down 12.9 percent from $5.62 billion a year ago, reflecting lower structural product prices and unit volume. Profit was $15.8 million, compared with $44.6 million a year ago. More …
Watsco, Inc., distributor of air conditioning and heating products,
