Manufacturing

Bristol Compressors is recognized in the HVAC and refrigeration industry in North America and globally as one of the leading manufacturers of reciprocating compressors. Chief operating officer Randy Jacoby tells John O’Hanlon why he wants to be the person who provides the reciprocating option to the HVAC market better than anyone else.

Brampton Brick has more than 100 years of history in Canada and recently opened its first manufacturing facility in the United States. Keith Regan learns from the company’s new vice president of strategic planning how the company plans to use diversification along with a continued emphasis on quality and service to pave the way for future growth.

American Sugar Refining is to buy the sugar business of UK food processing company Tate & Lyle for £211 million ($299 million) in cash, it has been announced. 

The group said that the proceeds of the deal, which is expected to be completed within the next two months, will be used to reduce its net debt levels.

The Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker will manufacture Focus cars for domestic and export markets at the factory, which is due to open in 2012. The plant in Rayong province, 200 kilometres east of Bangkok, will have an initial capacity of 150,000 vehicles a year.

Some 85 percent of the Thai-based Focus output will be exported, mostly to other south-east Asian nations and to Australia.

A mid-1960s radio series about a crime-fighting character called “Chickenman” spawned a popular catch-phrase: “He’s everywhere! He’s everywhere!” The next time you see a contractor’s pickup truck or a service van from your local utility company driving through the neighborhood, take a look at the ladders strapped on top, and more often than not you’ll see the familiar blue Werner Ladder logo on the side.

Germany-based BASF will buy Cognis from its owners—the US investment bank Goldman Sachs and the UK private equity group Permira—at an equity purchasing price of €700 million.

BASF said that it expects the household products additives maker to help it weather economic turbulence. BASF's core chemicals and plastics business currently relies on industries such as automotive and construction, both of which have been hit hard by the global economic crisis.

Something happened to Robbie Doyle on the way to medical school. He decided to take a six-month break after graduating from Harvard to work at Hood Sailmakers in Marblehead, Massachusetts. He never looked back. The intuitive grasp of the forces of wind and water that made Doyle a natural dinghy sailor as a youth and, years later, an applied physics major in college turned out to be invaluable assets in designing fast, light and powerful sails.

The merger will create a major Canadian-American player in the world of specialty pharmaceutical companies. Retaining the Valeant name, it will focus on four areas, including treatments for the skin and for neurology, and is expected to realize more than $175 million in cost savings by the second year.

National Starch, a subsidiary of the former UK group ICI, was taken over by Netherlands-based AkzoNobel as part of its acquisition of ICI in January 2008, but isn't considered part of AkzoNobel's core business. AkzoNobel is the largest coatings and specialty chemicals company in the world.
In 2009 National Starch had revenue of $1.2 billion from sales of specialty starches to local and multinational customers in the food, papermaking, consumer and industrial markets. With 2,250 employees around the world, it operates 11 plants in eight countries.