Grainger, Chicago, IL, No. 3 on MDM’s list of top 40 industrial distributors reported daily sales for the month of July were up 21 percent from the prior-year period. Results for the month included a 5 percentage point positive contribution from acquisitions and a 1 percentage point contribution from foreign exchange. More

Wolseley has agreed to sell Brandon Hire Limited, its UK tool and equipment hire business, to Rutland Partners, a UK-based private equity firm. Rutland Partners will pay £43 million (US$66.5 million). More

Industrial distributor Applied Industrial Technologies, Cleveland, OH, No. 8 on MDM’s list of the top 40 industrial distributors, reported sales for its fiscal 2010 ended June 30, 2010, were $1.89 billion, down 1.6 percent from 2009. Profit for the year was $65.9 million, up from $42.2 million last year. Sales for the fourth quarter were $523 million, up 23 percent from the prior-year period. Profit for the quarter was $27.7 million, up 85 percent from last year’s fourth quarter. More

Western Tool Supply, Salem, OR, has emerged from Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection after a 12-month process. The reorganization plan was approved by creditors on March 19, and the final discharge was effective June 29, 2010. The company filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection in June 2009. More

Graybar, St. Louis., MO, No. 6 on MDM’s list of top electrical distributors, a distributor of electrical, communications and data networking products, and provider of related supply chain management and logistics services, reported a slight increase in sales and a 14 percent increase in profit for the second quarter of 2010 compared to the second quarter of 2009. More

The Home Depot, Atlanta, GA, home improvement retailer, reported second quarter fiscal 2010 profit of $1.2 billion, compared with profit of $1.1 billion in the same period of fiscal 2009. More

Parker Hannifin Corp. , Cleveland, OH, manufacturer of motion and control technologies, has acquired Micro Thermo Technologies of Quebec, Canada, from Carrier Corp. Micro Thermo Technologies is a manufacturer of refrigeration controls and energy management systems for supermarket applications. More

After a six-month evaluation of the business, St. Louis, MO-based Emerson has agreed to sell its Motors and Appliance Controls businesses to Nidec Corporation. Nidec will retain existing facilities and current management and employees. Nidec will also operate these businesses from a headquarters building on the Emerson campus that currently is home to the Motor Technology Center. More

Canadian manufacturing sales edged up 0.1 percent to $44.8 billion in June. Sales have advanced in 11 of the past 13 months since the low reached in May 2009. Constant dollar manufacturing sales rose 0.7 percent to $41.7 billion in June. Constant dollar sales were 15.3 percent higher than in May 2009. Sales gains were reported in 9 of 21 industries, representing 50.1 percent of total sales. More

Sales of power transmission/motion control products by U.S. manufacturers rose 2.4 percent compared to the previous months and Canadian manufacturers’ sales rose 25.4 percent according to June 2010 sales data released by the Power Transmission Distributors Association in its Market Outlook Report. More

Wholesale prices rose 0.2 percent in July, seasonally adjusted, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This advance followed a 0.5-percent decline in June and a 0.3-percent decrease in May. More

Housing starts in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 546,000, 1.7 percent above June, but 7 percent below July 2009, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Single-family housing starts in July were at a rate of 432,000, 4.2 percent below June. The July rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 95,000. More

Industrial production rose 1.0 percent in July after having edged down 0.1 percent in June, and manufacturing output moved up 1.1 percent in July after having fallen 0.5 percent in June. A large contributor to the jump in manufacturing output in July was an increase of nearly 10 percent in the production of motor vehicles and parts; even so, manufacturing production excluding motor vehicles and parts advanced 0.6 percent. More

Led by improvements in production-related indicators, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index returned to its historical average of zero in July, up from -0.70 in June. Three of the four broad categories of indicators that make up the index improved from June, but only the production and income category made a positive contribution to the index in July. More

More than half of the companies in a new survey saw a decrease in inventory levels in 2009. But despite reduced inventory levels, customer satisfaction remained the same or improved for nearly 80 percent of these companies, according to a recent Finished Goods Inventory Management Report by Tompkins Supply Chain Consortium. The report reveals that while the economy sagged and sales were off, companies found ways to reduce their finished goods inventory levels. The top five reasons given by survey participants are: Smarter planning (21 percent); Drop in sales (21 percent); Management focus (20 percent); Sales growth (11 percent); and Inventory mix (5 percent). More

The U.S. economy has decelerated to a ‘slow growth mode,’ primarily driven by consumers continuing to deleverage and rediscovering the need for thrift, according to a new report. The Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI Quarterly Economic Forecast predicts that inflation-adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) will expand by 2.9 percent in 2010, followed by 2.6 percent growth in 2011. More

June U.S. manufacturing technology consumption totaled $241.47 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 up 35.8 percent from May and up 71.1 percent from the total of $141.12 million reported for June 2009. With a year-to-date total of $1,207.6 million, 2010 is up 56.1 percent compared with 2009. More