Brady Corp. acquires Italian manufacturer
Milwaukee-based Brady Corp. announced it has acquired wire-identification manufacturer Modernotecnica SpA of Milan, Italy.
Modernotecnica’s products include wire markers, electrical signage, name plates and face plates, cable management accessories, and software and printers used in wire marking. The company, founded in 1940, employs 44 people and has annual sales of approximately $15.5 million. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Kahler Slater acquires college campus design company
Kahler Slater Architects Inc. announced it has acquired Performa Higher Education, a national consulting and design group specializing in work for small private colleges and universities.
Milwaukee-based Kahler Slater also has an office in Madison. With the acquisition, the Performa Higher Education group provides a complement to Kahler Slater’s established Higher Education Team and its portfolio of significant public university projects.
Performa Higher Education will maintain its offices in Green Bay and in Burlington, N.C.
Performa Higher Education, formed in 1995, has 200 small private colleges and universities as clients.
Jill Morin, one of Kahler Slater’s chief executives, said, “We’ve been particularly aggressive in the last five years in redefining the discipline of design, adding to our architecture and interior design services with strategic research and vision planning, including communications. This acquisition fits right into our strategy of delivering total experience design.”
Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Missouri company acquires Wisconsin recycling firm
St. Louis, Mo.-based Alter Trading Corp. has acquired Samuels Recycling Co., a company that was founded in Wisconsin in 1896.
Samuels Recycling Co. is based in Portage and operates ferrous and non-ferrous metal recycling facilities in Madison, Janesville, Green Bay, Waupaca, Beaver Dam and Waupun.
Alter, a privately held firm, is a processor of scrap metal and currently employs 550 people. The acquisition of Samuels Recycling Co. will significantly increase Alter’s capacity, making it one of the largest scrap metal recycling companies in the United States.
InPro acquires Menomonee Falls company
Muskego-based InPro Corp. announced that it has acquired Lippert Corp, a Menomonee Falls manufacturer of bathroom and kitchen fixtures.
Lippert, which employs a staff of 50, projects 2006 sales of approximately $5.6 million. The company was acquired by InPro from Dan Lippert.
“This acquisition advances our corporate vision of being the recognized global leader in the industries we serve,” said Steve Ziegler, president and chief executive officer of InPro. “Lippert’s brand identity, along with InPro’s market position, will accelerate our growth.”
InPro is the nation’s leading manufacturer of interior and exterior architectural products. All of the Lippert managers and employees will be retained, and the Menomonee Falls plant will remain open, InPro spokesman Evan Bane told SBT. The Lippert name also will be retained as a product line of InPro, Bane said.
New Berlin barter service completes acquisition of New York firm
International Monetary Systems Ltd., a New Berlin-based business-to-business barter service, announced it has concluded its acquisition of Alliance Barter Inc. (ABI) of Rochester, N.Y.
ABI also has an office in Toronto, Canada, and serves additional clients in Buffalo and Syracuse, N.Y.
The merger increases the IMS client roster to more than 16,000 members with 24,000 cardholders.
Don Mardak, chief executive officer of International Monetary Systems, said, “Alliance Barter has long been recognized as having one of the industry’s strongest trade-dollar currencies. As is the case with IMS management, Steve Webster, founder and president of Alliance Barter, has always subscribed to the successful philosophy of treating clients fairly and making their barter experiences enjoyable and profitable. We hope to continue that tradition, as Steve will be playing an important role in our company’s future planning and growth strategy.”
