Jones Lang LaSalle


3M buys Hanover company
02/28/06 - Posted from the Daily Record newsroom
BY EDMOND LOCOCO
BLOOMBERG NEWS

3M Co., a maker of more than 50,000 products, agreed to acquire General Industrial Diamond Co., a manufacturer of super-abrasive grinding wheels and related tools. Terms weren't disclosed.

General Industrial Diamond, based in the Whippany section of Hanover, has about 100 employees split between there and a plant in Montrose, Colo.

The company declined to comment about the deal, which expected to close later this month.
3M spokeswoman Donna Fleming declined to say how the deal would affect the Hanover company's workers except that the company would be "fully integrated" into 3M's abrasive systems division.

Fleming said she couldn't provide last year's sales figures for closely held General Industrial.
The acquisition will be added to 3M's abrasive systems division, the business on which the company was founded in 1902. The division is part of 3M's industrial group, which had sales of $3.8 billion, or 18 percent of the company's total of $21.2 billion last year. The industrial group was combined with 3M's transportation business in January.

General Industrial makes tools for hard-to-grind materials, including ceramics, stone and glass, Fleming said.

Shares of 3M fell 10 cents to close at $73.59 on Tuesday. They have dropped 12 percent in the past year.