Flextronics makes bid for NatSteel unit
SINGAPORE - Contract manufacturer Flextronics International Ltd. has offered to acquire NatSteel Ltd.'s electronics unit for about S$653 million (US$364 million). The companies expect to wrap up the deal in August.
The publicly traded unit, NatSteel Broadway Ltd., supplies plastic and metal parts, performs tool design and fabrication and assembles printed circuit boards. The firm has a 2 million-square-foot plant in China and a smaller facility in Hungary. Its 2001 sales were about US$188 million. Customers include Funai Electric Co. Inc., Philips Electronics NV and LG Electronics Inc.
Singapore-based Flextronics is expanding its Chinese manufacturing capacity.
``The acquisition of these sites further advances our ongoing commitment to the region,'' Michael E. Marks, Flextronics chairman and chief executive officer, said in a news release.
NatSteel Ltd. and Ockham Holdings, which together own about 73.4 percent of NatSteel Broadway, have agreed to accept the offer, according to a filing with the Singapore Stock Exchange. NatSteel Ltd. of Singapore is restructuring to focus on its steel and industrial businesses.
Poly-Pacific gets OK for Calif. operation
ONTARIO, CALIF. - Ontario will be the location for Poly-Pacific International Inc.'s U.S. plastic lumber-making operation.
Jerry Blum, Ontario zoning administrator and planning director, on May 20 gave tentative approval for the Edmonton, Alberta, firm's request for a conditional-use permit.
The site will recycle used pesticide containers. The plant will start with 15-20 employees in 38,500 square feet of leased space, according to a city planner.
Poly-Pacific, which is publicly traded, recycles and makes MultiCut-brand plastic blasting media in Edmonton and agricultural fence posts and lumber in Tillsonburg, Ontario.
Juno shutting Arkansas molding plant
BLYTHEVILLE, ARK. - Juno Inc. of Anoka, Minn., is closing its Blytheville facility at the end of June.
The plant's thermoplastic injection molding of parts for electric tools and automotive products will relocate to a Juno site in Alexandria, Minn. ``Economic reasons'' caused the shutdown, Cecil Yost, production manager in Blytheville, said by telephone.
Juno built the 28,500-square-foot plant about five years ago to serve a customer that Yost declined to name. ``We still have that business but it has slowed, and we went out to get other business,'' Yost said. Juno internally announced the closure plan in early April.
The Blytheville plant employs 42 and operates 15 presses with clamping forces of 85-440 tons. Juno closed other plants in Rock Hill, S.C., in 1998 and San Clemente, Calif., in 1996.
Juno has capabilities for thermoplastic injection molding and thermoset injection, transfer and compression molding.
The firm employs 160, runs 59 presses and had sales of $29 million for the fiscal year ended Feb. 23. Juno is part of the commercial products group of Cretex Cos. Inc. of Elk River, Minn.
EPA modifies styrene emissions rule
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - The Environmental Protection Agency is removing a strict provision from a styrene emissions rule that it proposed Aug. 2.
Keith Barnett, an EPA environmental engineer, agreed to the change with two exceptions at a May 23 meeting in Research Triangle Park with composites industry representatives. The exceptions - continuous lamination and continuous casting - will affect only a few plants.
Barnett agreed to remove a requirement that plants that generate at least 100 tons of styrene emissions annually capture 95 percent of the emissions. The Composites Fabricators Association of Arlington, Va., has taken a strong stand against the requirement and has gathered congressional support.
``We had a successful and productive meeting'' in North Carolina, John Schweitzer, CFA senior director of government affairs, said by telephone. ``The EPA came around to the right thing,'' he said.
Now CFA will turn its attention to avoiding similar regulation of new plants.
Fabricators would ``like to build new plants [to make] underground storage tanks and bridge beams,'' Schweitzer said. ``We are talking about that issue'' with the EPA.
