Ceramic Ball Company Strategic Acquistion

Strategic Acquisition

At Hoover Precision Products East Granby we were charged with expanding the sales of silicon nitride balls for Hoover and our Japanese parent company.

We met a competitor in Europe who manufactured complete ceramic balls from powder though sintering and then ball lapping.   They where the smallest of the global producers of this product and they had very limited ball lapping capabilities.   They had impressive sales coverage in Europe and sold small quantities to all of the bearing producers in Europe.

They asked us to produce balls using their blanks for them in the United States to help them get more production at a lower costs.

Our counter offer was as follows:

1. We would purchase their ball manufacturing equipment and move it to the US.
2. We would purchase their ball inventory.
3. We would purchase their customer list.
4. We would hire their sales person as an employee.
5. They would exit the blank production process since they were 50x smaller than

the nearest competitor.

This was agreed.

A cash transaction occurred and we hired the salesperson to help us expand the sales effort in Europe.

This project was very successful.   There was a nice influx of new work that was so significant that it was largely produced and managed by our Japanese parent company.