Manufacturing

Anglo-Dutch consumer goods group Unilever has agreed to buy US-based hair care group Alberto Culver Co. for $3.7 billion in cash to boost its personal care business.

The acquisition will bring brands including V05, TRESemmé and Nexxus, making Unilever the world leader in hair conditioning, the second largest in shampoo, and the third largest in styling.

The Clorox Company is to sell its global auto care business, including the brands Armor All and STP, to a private equity firm for $780 million.

Avista Capital Partners, with offices in New York and Houston and holdings in energy, health and media, will acquire two auto care manufacturing facilities from Clorox, one in Painesville, Ohio with 70 employees, and one in Wales, in the UK, with 24. All employees will transfer to the buyer.

Energy Automation Systems, Inc. (EASI), which develops, manufactures and markets energy saving technologies, has started construction on a $1.5 million, 20,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in Gallatin, Tennessee.

The company expects to manufacture approximately $30 million of products annually at the new site.

The facility is located on an eight-acre tract of land that EASI officials bought 10 years ago in anticipation of company growth. Project completion is scheduled in late December 2010.

British aero engineer Hampson Industries has won its largest ever tooling contract, worth $53 million (£34 million).

The contract is to design and manufacture lightweight mandrel tools for carbon fibre lay-up for a major commercial aerospace programme.

Although the West Midlands-based company did not name the customer, it is widely believed to be Boeing, the world's second largest commercial plane maker.

South Africa’s construction boom has proved a lucrative time for a raft of new elevator and escalator companies. The rise in demand prompted Schindler South Africa, one of the established players, to review its approach to business. Pankaj Sinha, newly appointed managing director, tells Andrew Pelis how the company has transformed its operations.

Honeywell today announced it has completed its acquisition of Sperian Protection for approximately $1.4 billion, including the assumption of net debt.

Sperian Protection is a leading provider of personal protective equipment (PPE), and will be combined within Honeywell's Automation and Control Solutions' Life Safety business.

A123 Systems has opened the largest lithium-ion automotive battery manufacturing plant in North America.

The new facility in Livonia, Michigan, is a welcome boost for employment in the beleaguered state and will expand A123’s production capacity up to 600MW hours per year when fully operational, contributing to the company's plan to expand global final cell assembly capacity to more than 760MW hours annually by the end of 2011.

BAE Systems, Europe’s largest defense contractor, is considering the sale of its US-based component manufacturing business Platform Solutions, for up to $2 billion.

Platform Solutions makes electronic components including cockpit displays for military jets and digital engine controls for commercial aircraft. The company, part of BAE's Electronic, Intelligence and Support (EI&S) division, also produces electrical components for hybrid buses. The unit has facilities in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Irving, Texas, Johnson City, New York, and Redmond, Washington.  

Gerbig Engineering Company, a designer, fabricator and installer of modular cleanrooms, has completed a move to a new location with increased square footage in Burnsville, Minnesota.

The new location provides expanded production, warehouse and office areas. A laboratory area for cleanroom environmental monitoring and room for a future cleanroom products testing lab are also included in the space.

The attempt by Air Products to acquire Airgas has taken some twists and turns this week.

The week began with Airgas resoundingly rejecting a revised offer from Air Products to purchase the remaining Airgas shares that it does not already own, referring to the offer of $65.50 per share in cash as “grossly inadequate”. Air Products then accused Air Gas of ‘value destructive tactics’.