consecutive year of sharp rises in profit margins. Accompanying the increased profits were 2006 median sales increases of 17.4 percent, also the highest in a decade.  ; More …
Hagemeyer, Naarden, the Netherlands, announced that Rudi de Becker will resign as CEO and chairman of the Board of Management of Hagemeyer at the next annual general meeting of shareholders in April 2008. Hagemeyer said that De Becker wants to spend more time with his family. Hagemeyer is a distributor of electrical parts and supplies, safety and other MRO products in 25 countries in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. More …
RBC Bearings Incorporated, Oxford, CT, an international manufacturer of highly-engineered precision plain, roller and ball bearings for the industrial, defense and aerospace industries, reported sales for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007, were $306.1 million, an increase of 11.5 percent from the prior year. Profit was $28.5 million, up 128 percent from the year before. More …
The Barnes Distribution business segment of Barnes Group Inc. has opened an international sourcing center in Shanghai, China. The sourcing center will complement Barnes’previously established sourcing center in Taiwan. Barnes Distribution is a distributor of maintenance, repair, operating and production supplies. More …
Canadian wholesalers posted sharply lower sales in April, as declines in a number of major sectors erased all of the strong gains made over the previous two months. Overall sales fell by 3.1 percent in April to an estimated $42.8 billion. April’s drop was the largest since August 2003 and followed increases of 2.3 percent and 0.9 percent in March and February respectively. Five of the seven wholesale sectors registered declines in April. Leading the way was the automotive products sector (-8.3 percent), followed by “other products” (-5.9 percent) and machinery and electronic equipment (-2.3 percent). More …
Builder confidence declined two more points in June, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. With a reading of 28, the HMI now is at the lowest level in its current cycle and has reached the lowest point since February 1991.
Pulizzi Engineering, a manufacturer of AC power distribution, AC power sequencing, redundant power and remote-reboot power management systems. Pulizzi Engineering had 2006 sales of $12 million and is in Santa Ana, CA. More …
Schneider Electric will sell MGE UPS Systems to diversified industrial manufacturer Eaton Corp. The expected move is to fulfill a commitment to the European Commission following Schneider’s acquisition of American Power Conversion. Eaton is offering 425 million euros (US$569 million) for the business, which had revenues of 156 million euros (US$209 million) in 2006.  ; More …
Housing starts in May were 2.1 percent below April and 24.2 percent below May 2006. Year-to-date, the steepest declines in housing starts were seen in the Midwest, with a 33.4 percent fall, and the West, with a 28.3% decline. Year-to-date, the steepest declines in permits were again in the Midwest, with 27.7 percent decline, and the West with a 26.7 percent decline. More …
Industrial production was unchanged in May after a smaller revised increase of 0.4 percent in April. Output in the manufacturing sector edged up 0.1 percent in May, and mining output moved up 0.5 percent after declining 0.6 percent in April. At 112.7 percent of its 2002 average, overall industrial production for May was 1.6 percent above its year-earlier level. The rate of capacity utilization for total industry fell 0.2 percentage point, to 81.3 percent. More …
April U.S. manufacturing technology consumption totaled $281.54 million, according to the Association for Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors’Association. This total was down 27.2 percent from March, but up 2.2 percent from the total of $275.43 million reported for April 2006. With a year-to-date total of $1,259.09 million, 2007 was up 8.7 percent compared with 2006.  ; More …
Following a strong gain in March, Canadian manufacturing shipments edged down in April. Shipments decreased by  ; 0.6 percent to an estimated  ; $49.7  ; billion. Excluding the motor vehicle parts and accessory industries, manufacturing shipments increased  ; 1 percent in April. More …
The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods increased 0.9 percent in May, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported. This advance followed a 1.0-percent increase in March. The index for finished goods excluding foods and energy moved up 0.2 percent in May. More …
The industrial producer price index rose by 0.4 percent in the euro area in April 2007. In March, prices increased by 0.3 percent. In April 2007, compared with April 2006, industrial producer prices gained 2.4 percent in the euro area. The highest year-over-year increases were recorded in Luxembourg (8.7 percent), Hungary (8 percent), Bulgaria (7.9 percent)  ; and Lithuania (7.3 percent). A decrease was registered in Denmark. More …
Profits for electrical distributorsin 2006 rose sharply to the highest level since 1993, reaching a median of 3.7 percent, according to the National Association of Electrical Distributors in its annual Performance Analysis Report. The 3.7 percent figure represents the third
Five U.S.  ; producers of steel nails have filed antidumping duty petitions alleging that dumped imports of nails from and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are causing material injury to the domestic industry. The petitioners allege antidumping margins of 59 percent to 136 percent for and 98 percent to 114 percent for the UAE. The petitioners are Mid Continent Nail Corporation,
Technology distributor Ingram Micro Inc., Santa Ana, CA, has agreed to buy DBL Distributing Inc., Scottsdale, AZ, a distributor of consumer electronics accessories and related products with 2006 sales of nearly $300 million. The purchase price is $96 million. The deal strengthens Ingram Micro’s position in a higher-margin niche of the consumer electronics market. Ingram Micro reported $31 billion in fiscal 2006 annual sales, and overall gross margin of 5.4 percent. More …
US Electrical Services, LLC, Exton, PA, has acquired Pioneer Electric Supply, Beltsville, MD. Pioneer has been supplying the needs of electrical contractors in greater Washington, DC for almost 16 years.  ; The company focuses primarily on large and small new construction and renovation projects.  ; Pioneer will join four other area USESI-owned locations in the area. More …
Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co., Los Angeles, CA, has agreed to acquire Clayton Metals, Inc., Wood Dale, IL. Clayton Metals specializes in the processing and distribution of aluminum, stainless steel and red metal flat-rolled products, custom extrusions and aluminum circles through its four metals service center locations. Clayton Metal’s sales for the 12 months ended Dec. 31, 2006, were $123 million.  ; More …
VWR International, Inc., West Chester, PA, a supplier to the global research laboratory industry, has agreed to acquire Bie & Berntsen A-S, a Danish scientific laboratory supply distributor. Bie & Berntsen is one of Denmark’s largest suppliers of chemical and laboratory equipment with 90 employees, all in Denmark. The company has annual revenues of US$27 million. VWR, a $3.2 billion distributor, recently changed hands. It was sold to Madison Dearborn Partners in early May. More …
SKF has acquired Baker Instruments Company, Fort Collins, CO, a manufacturer of test and diagnostic instruments for electric motor assessment, for $14 million. Baker has annual sales of $11 million. “This move into electric motor diagnostics is important to our new Energy Efficiency solutions business, and is in line with the SKF Group’s move towards supporting our customers in their sustainability efforts,” said Phil Knights, president, SKF Service Division. More …
Diversified industrial manufacturer Eaton Corporation, Cleveland, OH, has acquired
