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Ryerson-Integris
Integration Begins
Ryerson Tull Inc., Chicago, closed Jan. 4 on its purchase of Integris
Metals Inc., Minneapolis, from shareholders Alcoa Inc. and BHP Billiton.
Ryerson purchased all of the equity interest in Integris for $410
million and assumed debt of about $234 million. To finance the acquisition,
Ryerson tapped its new $1.1 billion revolving credit agreement.
Integration
teams from Ryerson and Integris have been identifying synergies
and best practices from each of the two companies, to be used by
the new organization, says Neil S. Novich, chairman, president,
and CEO of Ryerson Tull.
“The
new organizational structure is in place, and we are excited about
our ability to create a company that brings unparalleled levels
of service to customers and competitiveness to the marketplace.
“We
have adequate liquidity, with $300 million available under our credit
facility, and the financial flexibility to support our expanded
organization and corporate initiatives,” Novich adds.
Integris
was formed in November 2001 by combining Reynolds Aluminum Supply
Co. and North America Metals Distribution Inc., the metals distribution
businesses of Alcoa and BHP Billiton, respectively. Integris Metals
has about 2,400 employees.
Ryerson
expects that Integris will add to its earnings immediately. Company
executives plan to capture efficiencies and generate annualized
cost savings of at least $30 million within two years.
Copper
& Brass Sales Buys Schupan Aluminum
Copper and Brass Sales, Southfield, Mich., has purchased the assets
of Schupan Aluminum Sales in Austin, Texas. The acquisition establishes
Copper and Brass Sales in Texas, where it supplies aluminum, brass,
copper, stainless steel and value-added processing services.
Schupan
Aluminum will continue to serve its customers in the upper Midwest
from Kalamazoo, Mich.
William
G. Sabol, president of Copper and Brass Sales, says this purchase
provides the company with a strategic opportunity. “Establishing
a solid presence in Texas aligns perfectly with our long-term company
growth plans, and we’re looking forward to developing strong
relationships with our new customers.”
Pipe
Distributor Edgen Sold
Harvest Partners Inc., a New York private equity investment firm,
has signed a definitive agreement to sell Edgen Corp., a Baton Rouge,
La.-based distributor of carbon and alloy pipe, to Jefferies Capital
Partners, New York, and certain Edgen senior managers, for $124
million.
Harvest
sponsored the 1996 management buyout of Edgen, known at the time
as Thomas Pipe & Steel, as a platform to become a large carbon
steel and alloy pipe and components distributor. Harvest and its
co-investors provided capital for seven additional acquisitions
that allowed Edgen to broaden its product offerings, establish a
global presence and strengthen its market position. Edgen now has
17 locations in the United States, Canada and Scotland.
“We
have achieved our goal of building Edgen’s distribution business
platform and now is the logical time in our investment cycle to
exit,” says Ira Kleinman, managing director at Harvest.
Dan
O’Leary, CEO of Edgen, says that in spite of difficult market
conditions over the last few years, the company has been able to
increase its market share and achieve significant growth. “We
feel strongly that we will continue to create and capitalize on
future opportunities with Jefferies Capital as our partner.”
Tube
Maker Plans $7.38 Million Expansion
LJT Tennessee LLC, a mechanical and structural grade steel tubing
manufacturer in Chattanooga, plans an expansion amounting to $7.38
million in investment. LJT is owned by the Lerman family, who also
own Steel Warehouse Co., South Bend, Ind.
Using
hot-rolled, cold-rolled, aluminized and galvanized steel, LJT services
fabricators as well as original equipment manufacturers with sizes
and shapes of steel tubing used in the automotive, office furniture,
health care, exercise and other industries.
The
project will expand LJT’s plant at Centre South Riverport nearly
50 percent, from 105,000 square feet to 158,000 square feet, says
LJT vice president and general manager Michael Donnelly. The work
includes installing additional capacity in the mill and cutting
departments, as well as the addition of a light-gauge blanking line.
Donnelly
expects the company’s head count to increase from 52 employees
to more than 100 over the next three years.
Steel-Related
Jobs Rise in Indiana
The Ports of Indiana set a new employment mark with 2,800 workers
employed directly within its three facilities at the close of 2004.
A majority of the 2004 employment increase resulted from significant
growth in steel industries at the ports.
Three
new steel-related companies opened for business at Ports of Indiana
facilities in 2004, and five others made significant hirings.
Steel
shipping at the Ports of Indiana increased 88 percent in 2004 from
the previous year. Last year’s employment increase was aided
by the opening of Kasle Metal Processing, as well as significant
hiring by Eagle Steel Products and Scan Steel. Twenty-six companies
are located at Jeffersonville, 13 of which are steel-related companies.
At
the Burns Harbor/Portage docks, direct employment at the port rose
8.2 percent last year, aided by the arrival of Behr Iron & Steel
and new hiring at Feralloy Processing. Thirty companies operate
at the port, 14 of which are steel-related companies.
People
S.O.S. Metals Inc., West Chester, Ohio, has hired James M. Banker
Jr. as president of the Steel Service Center Unit. He spent 21 years
at AK Steel Corp., where he served as vice president, sales and
marketing, and before that, as vice president of operations. The
company also promoted William Riley, formerly vice president of
operations, to president of processing. Before joining S.O.S., he
was vice president of operations at Parkview Metal Products, Chicago.
Aaron Higdon was promoted from general manager to president of the
J.R. Metals Division. Eric Vogel, who was director of logistics,
was promoted to vice president of supply chain management. He was
director of purchasing at Henny Penny Corp. before joining S.O.S.
Edward
Raimonde has been appointed chief executive officer of American
Douglas Metals Inc., Orlando, Fla., which distributes aluminum and
steel. Raimonde joined ADM in 1988 and worked his way into executive
management. He has been vice president since 1995 and president
of the company’s McEver Metal Processing subsidiary near Atlanta
for two years.
Dani
Kennedy and Paul Renai have joined the inside sales staff of Marmon/Keystone
Corp.’s New Castle, Del., service center. Kennedy has 13 years
of sales experience in the steel industry. Renai was an inside salesman
and purchasing agent at other companies. Mario Granados has joined
the inside sales staff at the company’s Houston service center.
He has 10 years’ experience in metals sales.
Briefs
Benedict Miller, Kenilworth, N.J., now offers close-to-net shape
services on aircraft quality steel parts made from AQ 4130 and 4340
alloy sheet or plate. This ability allows the company to help customers
streamline their manufacturing efficiencies, provide fast-to-market
turnaround and meet the requirements of high-speed automated manufacturing
processes. Close-to-net shapes require minimal handling and machining,
which allows parts makers to limit machining, increase product output,
reduce tooling setups, simplify internal automation processes and
abbreviate work handling. Customers can e-mail custom shapes direct
from their own files to Benedict Miller. Additional value added
services include CNC flame and plasma cutting, shearing, sawing,
grinding and annealing.
WestLB
AG, Germany, sold its 94.9 percent stake in metals distributor Klöckner
& Co. AG, Germany, to Lindsay Goldberg & Bessemer (LGB),
a New York-based investment firm. Terms were not disclosed. “Our
aim is to ensure the continued development of Klöckner as a
whole and to increase its value as a going concern in the long term,”
says Dieter Vogel, former chairman at Thyssen AG and European fund
manager for LGB. “The company will be preserved in its entirety
and expanded with the help of growth capital from the LGB fund.”
He expects no relocation of facilities and no reduction in workforce.
Klöckner & Co. distributes steel from 280 locations in
10 countries. 2003 revenues reached 3.8 billion euros with a net
profit of 27 million euros.
Advanced
Gauging Technologies, which makes isotope thickness gauges and coil
mapping devices, has relocated to an expanded facility in Plain
City, Ohio. The company recently supplied AGT400 thickness gauges
to Orca Steel Processing, Gibraltar, Mich.; Riverview Steel Co.
Ltd., Windsor, Ontario; Tomson Steel Co., Middletown, Ohio; Concord
Steel Centre Ltd., Woodbridge, Ontario; and Servilamina Summit Mexicana
in Queretaro, Mexico.
Verticent
Inc., the Tampa, Fla., developer of enterprise software solutions,
has licensed its ERP Plus suite for metal service centers to Kandil
Industries, Cairo, Egypt. Kandil will use the system to better match
supply with demand, obtain lower inventories, improve capacity management,
improve yields and reduce scrap costs. The company will also streamline
financial consolidation of all its divisions and subsidiaries.
Esmark
completed its acquisitions of Tri-Western Metals Co., Chicago, from
Triumph Group Inc. last month, for $15 million, and Century Steel
LLC, Chicago, for $40 million. Each company is now a wholly owned
subsidiary of Esmark.
Ohio
Gratings Inc. has opened a new 15,000-square-foot branch in Ridgeland,
S.C., to serve customers in the Southeast. The company supplies
light duty steel and aluminum grating in various finishes, and custom
fabrication services.
The
metals industry dinner show, to benefit the Boy Scouts of America’s
Chicago Area Council, will begin at 6 p.m. Friday, April 15, at
the Hyatt Regency hotel, 151 E. Wacker Drive, Chicago. This annual
fundraiser is one of North America’s largest gatherings of
metals companies. Individual tickets are $350. To reserve a seat,
call Kevin Wilson at 312-421-8800, Ext. 231 or visit www.chicagobsa.org/metals.
Steel
Supply Co., Rolling Meadows, Ill., has been in business for 100
years. The company distributes chrome-plated shafting and tubing,
honed ID steel tubing, ground and polished bars and cold-drawn steel
bars. It has a complete machining facility on site, and offers induction
hardening, induction tubing, CNC machining, piston rods, hydraulic
rods and other products and services. The company was recently certified
to ISO 9001:2000 standards.
Winchester
Metals Inc., Winchester, Va., celebrates its 30th anniversary this
year. Founded in 1975 by father and son Charles M. and Steve Zuckerman,
the company was known until last July as Charles Zuckerman &
Son Inc.
The company has grown from a fabricator stocking some standard sizes
to a full-line service center with plate processing, sawing, iron-working,
beam and rebar processing. The
company is an authorized distributor of Alcoa Engineered Products
and a distributor for McElroy Metals products. The current owners
are brothers Donald M. and Mark Phelps, both of whom were long-time
employees. Two of Donald Phelps’ sons have joined the company.
United
Steelworkers’ members at Dofasco-owned Powerlasers Ltd., which
makes welded blanks for the auto industry, have voted in favor of
strike action if necessary. The vote follows a breakdown of negotiations
for a first contract. Mediation for the 60 employees was scheduled
for Feb. 9. If that fails to move negotiations forward, a strike
was to begin at 12:01 a.m., Feb. 10. The union was certified at
Powerlasers last summer.
Ferrolux
Metals Company of Ohio LLC has purchased a single-loop precision
Class 1 automotive slitting line from Herr-Voss Stamco. The line
will process coils measuring up to 78 inches wide and 55 tons in
thicknesses from 0.015 to 0.135-inch. Installation is expected to
occur during the fourth quarter.
Chicago
Tube and Iron Co. has ordered 16 P&H overhead cranes and 13
jib cranes from Morris Material Handling to be installed at its
new headquarters in Romeoville, Ill., now under construction. The
overhead cranes will be 5-ton and 10-ton capacities; the jib cranes
have capacities of 1,000-pounds and 1 ton.
Keystone
Specialty Metals Inc., Bensalem, Pa., has installed a PMI Accur-Cut
shear table, which allows the stainless steel flat bar distributor
to produce tight tolerances on the width of sheared and edged flat
bar from 1/8th to 1/4-inch thick. The shear will also help the company
cut lead times on bar processing orders.
Farmer’s
Copper and Industrial Supply Inc., Galveston, Texas, has installed
a 20-inch capacity HE&M band saw capable of handling demand
for large-diameter cut-to-length materials.
Blue
Blade Steel, Kenilworth, N.J., now offers custom machine-edged strip
steel coils in a choice of square, round or any combination of machine-beveled
edges. It’s a value-added service that transforms standard
slit-edge strip steel into a more efficient finished-edge strip
that reduces manufacturing production time and eliminates scrap
waste.
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