ACQUISITIONS/MERGERS

Fisher-Rosemount’s parent company, Emerson Electric Co., has acquired Orion CEM Inc., a supplier of process automation and engineering services for the pulp and paper industry. Orion’s pulp and paper process control expertise, combined with Fisher-Rosemount’s products and services, will provide solution options for performance and life-cycle cost improvements at mills. Orion will retain its name and will become the Pulp & Paper Center of Engineering Excellence for Fisher-Rosemount.

Honeywell has acquired the Management Science division of Bonner & Moore Assoc. Inc., including its comprehensive planning and supply chain management applications and consulting services for the process industries. The division will become part of Honeywell’s Hi-Spec Solutions business.

J. M. Voith AG has now officially acquired certain business segments of Scapa Group plc. The paper machine clothing segment, now called Voith Fabrics, will be integrated into the existing Voith Group Div. (Voith Appleton) headquartered in Charlotte, N.C. The roll covers and the service segments will become part of the Service Div. of the Voith Group Div.

Dow Chemical Co. and Union Carbide announced that their board of directors approved a definitive merger agreement for a tax-free, stock-for-stock transaction. Under the agreement, Union Carbide’s shareholders will receive 0.537 shares of Dow for each share of Union Carbide they own. Based upon Dow’s closing price of $124 11/16 on August 3, 1999, the transaction is valued at $66.96 per Union Carbide share or $11.6 billion in aggregate including the assumption of $2.3 billion in net debt.

ABB Automation Inc. has purchased from Monitoring Technology Corp. (MTC) the technology relating to Smart Advisor. MTC will continue to be ABB’s sole supplier for Smart Advisor, a range of machine health monitoring equipment and services.

Victaulic Co. of America, a producer of mechanical piping components, has acquired Brico Industries Inc., a manufacturer of mechanical pipe joining systems that specializes in large diameter connections. Brico will continue operations at its present location in Atlanta, Ga.

A group of investors led by Schroder Canadian Buy-Out Fund II has acquired the industrial flexible packaging activities of Amcor Twinpak-North America Inc., a subsidiary of Amcor Ltd. of Australia. The business will be called Flexia Corp. with plants in Langley, B.C.; Brantford, Ont.; and Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Que. It will manufacture a diverse range of coated, printed, woven, non-woven, and laminated materials for pulp and paper, lumber, construction, and other industries.

The Specialty Metal Products Division (SMP) of Ametek Inc. of Eighty Four, Pa., has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Clad Metal Bonding Div. of Dynamic Materials Corp., a manufacturer of specialty metals headquartered in Lafayette, Colo. The acquisition will provide customers with an expanded range of bonded metal plate thicknesses and technologies.

 

JOINT VENTURES

Fisher-Rosemount has announced a worldwide strategic alliance with Elcon Instruments to combine the power of Asset Management Solutions (AMS) software and Elcon Instrument’s HART Interface Solutions (HIS) hardware. The combination of AMS and HIS enables users to easily realize the benefits of intelligent field devices for streamlining calibration, configuration, monitoring, and diagnostics. Under this agreement, Fisher-Rosemount will make HIS the standard hardware offering for use with its AMS software.

Camstar’s InSite, a Windows NT-based manufacturing execution system (MES), has been accepted into Rockwell Automation’s Encompass Program. InSite collects and organizes data from multiple sources on the plant floor, provides control over critical manufacturing resources, and connects the plant to the enterprise with real-time visibility into plant operations.

Environmental Resources Mgmnt., a global environmental, health, and safety consulting, engineering, construction, and management services firm, and Severn Trent Environmental Services, a contract operations company for water services, have teamed up to provide contract operations and maintenance services for industrial wastewater treatment facilities in the U.S.

Somavrac Inc. of Trois Rivieres, Que., and Clariant Inc. of St. Laurent, Que., have partnered to produce and sell liquid sodium hydrosulfite to the pulp and paper industry in eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. Somavrac will own and operate a new plant using Clariant technology. Clariant will be the exclusive seller and marketer of the plant’s products.

ABB Automation Inc. and Transphase Engineering Ltd. have partnered together to market and sell wet and dry end steam profilers worldwide.

Greif Bros. Corp. has exchanged its spiral core manufacturing assets for a 49% equity interest in Abzac SA’s fiber drum business. The new spiral core business has been renamed Abzac Inc.; the fiber drum business is known as Abzac-Greif.

Sterling Fluid Systems (USA) Inc. has established an alliance with Field Technologies of Burns Harbor, Ind., to become a Sterling Fluid Systems Quick Response Center (QRC) for Chicago and northern Indiana. Sterling’s QRCs supply high quality OEM parts and provide in-house upgrades, re-engineering, and pump repair services for several Sterling brands as well as other equipment.

Iconics, a developer of industrial automation software, has signed licensing agreements with Intrinsyc Inc. of Vancouver, Canada, Aqua Communications of Cambridge, Mass, and Phoenix Contact of Blomberg, Germany, to incorporate Iconic’s new Windows CE-based software technology into each company’s next generation of automation products. Iconics has also created partnerships with Synergetic Micro Systems Inc. and Hilscher GmbH to offer enhanced object linking and embedding for process control (OPC) connectivity and fieldbus networking.

SCC Industries, a manufacturer of bulk material handling equipment and related products, has mutually agreed with Molinos Azteca Y Juper SA de CV to terminate their venture agreement that formed Screw Conveyor de Mexico SA de CV. SCC will take complete ownership of the joint venture company, which has experienced significant sales growth since its formation five years ago. Molinos will use the capital resources to fund an expansion program.

 

MARKETING/LICENSING

Vinings Industries Inc., a producer of colloidal silicas, has selected Brenntag Inc. as its distributor partner. Brenntag is the North American distribution division of the international chemical distribution company, Brenntag AG, headquartered in Mulheim on-the-Ruhr, Germany.

Moog Inc., a manufacturer of precision motion control components and systems, and The Oilgear Co., a producer of solid pump valve products and engineered systems, have formed a business alliance to market fluid power components and systems. This alliance will cover regions in North and South America and Europe.

 

NEW FACILITIES

BASF Corp. has announced that it will construct a paper colorants manufacturing plant at its Altamira site near Tampico, Mexico. The $20 million facility, scheduled to come online in the fourth quarter of 2000, will employ the latest colorant manufacturing and process control technology. The company will also enhance its distribution system by establishing a strategic network of bulk terminals and packaged goods warehouses across North America.

 

EXPANSIONS

BASF Corp. has begun an 18-month, $60 million expansion and capital improvement project at its facility in Monaca, Pa. The four phases of the project include initiating continual elimination of production bottlenecks, producing Basoplast, expanding production of existing dispersions products, and the construction of a new building. It will also expand the existing infrastructure to improve the facility’s materials handling and process management.

Morbark Inc. has opened a full-service product support facility in Ashland, Va. It will provide parts, housing service, and repairs for Morbark equipment.

American Sigma, a producer of water monitoring instrumentation, will open a new sales office in Nashville, Tenn., that will serve Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and southwestern Kentucky.

Digital Systems Engineering (DSE) has expanded into a new facility in Phoenix, Ariz. The new building more than doubles the manufacturing space for its PowerTouch line of harsh duty sealed industrial PCs. The building also houses the company’s engineering, R&D, marketing, and executive offices.

Cattron Group Inc., a designer and manufacturer of portable remote control systems, has established a subsidiary in Brazil to sell, install, and provide technical support for its products throughout South America.

 

TECHNOLOGY

River Valley Industries (RVI) has completed the requirements for its Waste Reduction and Recycling Demonstration Grant. The grant is authorized by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and is intended to encourage creative solutions to ongoing environmental issues. RVI has developed a process to beneficially combine waste plastic and paper/pulp mill sludge. The resulting composite material can be pelletized, molded, or extruded into plastic products. RVI plans to offer this technology to the pulp and paper industry as well as companies dealing in plastics.

The first sodium chlorate based CIO₂ process to receive EPA registration for use as a disinfectant in drinking water and wastewater in the SVP-Pure technology has been developed by Eka Chemicals Inc. In addition to cost advantages over chlorite based systems, the process achieves chemical conversions of 95+% without undesirable by-products or the implementation of sizable, costly systems.

 

CERTIFICATIONS/AWARDS

Six facilities of Motion Industries have achieved ISO 9002 registration: East Windsor, Conn.; Warwick, R.I.; and Brockton, Haverhill, Somerville, and Marlborough, Mass. Motion Industries distributes mechanical, electrical, and fluid power transmission equipment as well as bearings and hose products

Flow International Corp., a developer and manufacturer of ultrahigh-pressure waterjet technology, has earned ISO 9001 registration.

The Johnson Corp., Three Rivers, Mich., has been awarded “Company of the Year, 1998-99” by the Kalamazoo/Southwest Michigan chapter of APICS. APICS, the educational society for resource management, offers educational opportunities in the field of inventory, production control, and resource management.

Esmil Process Systems, High Wycombe, England, has received the Queen’s Award for Environmental Achievement 1999. The company is honored for its development of a zero discharge wood pulp effluent and water recovery system. Esmil and Osmonics, a worldwide supplier of fluid filtration and other products, cooperated in the development of membrane technology for the project.

Biothermica, a company specializing in air pollution control and landfill gas management and utilization, has received the Air & Waste Management Assoc.’s 1999 J. Deane Sensenbaugh Award for Biotox, its patented product used in treating industrial emissions. It is the first Canadian firm to receive this award that recognizes the accomplishments in the field of air pollution control or waste management.

Buckman Laboratories in Ghent, Belgium, a specialty chemical company, received the Milieucharter Award for 1998 from the Environment Charters East Flanders project. The project encourages companies that voluntarily subscribe to environmental goals that exceed the requirements of the law.

 

NAME CHANGES

GenCorp has unveiled Omnova Solutions Inc. as the name for the new company it expects to spin off in October 1999. The new company will operate two of GenCorp’s businesses, Decorative & Building Products and Performance Chemicals, as an independent publicly traded company.

 

PRICING

BASF Corp., Dispersions and Paper Chemicals Business Unit, has raised prices for its straight acrylic and styrene acrylic copolymer emulsions in the U.S. and Canada by $0.02/wet pound or as contracts allow. These products are marketed under the Acronal trademark.

GenCorp’s Performance Chemicals business has announced a $0.02/wet pound increase for all its vinyl acetate and vinyl acrylic products. This increase is driven by raw material cost increases.

Dow Chemical Co. has increased the off-list selling price for liquid chlorine sold in the U.S. by $40.00/short ton, not to exceed its current list price of $255.00/short ton, f.o.b. Freeport, Texas, or Plaquemine, La., buyer absorbs freight. The increase is effective immediately to all spot customers or as contract terms permit.

Solvay Interox has increased off-list prices for all grades of hydrogen peroxide. Prices will increase U.S. $0.03/lb in the U.S. and C.D.N. $98/mton in Canada for 100% basis hydrogen peroxide. Stronger-than-expected demand for the first half of the year was cited as the reason for the increase