EGS Electrical Group, Chicago, Ill., announced a pair of acquisitions, the establishment of new regional distribution centers and the return of two product lines to full ownership by General Signal.
EGS, a one-year-old joint venture between Emerson Electric, St. Louis, Mo., and General Signal Corp., Stamford, Conn., will return full ownership of two lines--Edwards and Dual-Lite--to General Signal, contingent on the completion of a proposed merger between General Signal and SPX Corp., Muskegon, Mich.
The two units will be reunited with General Signal's EST Building Systems Group. EST manufactures most of Edwards' products. EGS president Thomas McKane said Edwards will be better served strategically by the combination with EST. Edwards' sales efforts will continue under Paul Suzio. Dual-Lite will continue to be led by Rich Dillon. Both Dual-Lite and Edwards will continue to use EGS Electrical Group's accounting and information systems, and their products will be distributed through the EGS distribution network.
That distribution network is in for a major expansion, as EGS plans to open in January 1999 the first in a series of consolidated distribution centers that will distribute the combined product lines of EGS Electrical Group.
In late July the company announced plans to add European-specification, hazardous-location products with the purchase of ATX, Noisy-le-Sec, France, a division of Legrand. ATX, which manufactures electrical products conforming to IEC and CENELEC hazardous-location standards, will be a business unit of the EGS Electrical Group.
EGS also recently acquired the Easy Heat companies, which make heat cables for residential and light industrial markets. They will be combined with EGS's Nelson Heat Trace line of heating cables used in commercial and industrial process heating applications. The acquisition allows EGS to offer products ranging from simple resistance-wire cable through mineral-insulated cable and self-regulating cable.
To top it all off, in October the company will move its headquarters to a new office complex in Skokie, Ill., that will house its corporate offices and the offices of several of its business units.