Mike Pio writes:

I found a quick link which describes it a little mo


http://www.manufacturing.net/ind/art...stry=Electrica
l+Equip.+&industryid=21940

And here's one on Techtronic's site confirming their acquisition:

http://www.ttigroup.com/general/home.php

IIRC, the price was to be around 666 million bucks. I was at a Ryobi tool
introduction yesterday when they announced some details. Somewhere, I've got a
press release, but it's almost certainly on the above site.

Atlas Copco bought Milwaukee less than a decade ago, and appears to have done
little or nothing to expand its market share, yet the brass at AC stated, "The
business is, however, still far from the Group's desired position of globally
being number one or two in the markets we serve."

One has to wonder what people like that use for thinking equipment. Neither
Milwaukee nor AEG had the kind of market penetration, though both made, and
make, marvelous tools, that would lead to a fulfillment of that kind of
expectation without one helluva lot of tool research and development at several
levels. Neither company produces what can be called consumer level tools,
meaning their numbers are never going to go over the top and sweep everyone
else away. That should have been obvious to even to even the most solidly
MBA-ed dolt in management, but it seems not. Then again...when a company thinks
annual plans are the same as long term plans....

It should be in interesting run. Ryobi R&D has always come up with of the more
interesting tool concepts, and some damned good tools in particular price
ranges (and some that are not all that good...I'm not a fan of their routers).
There is a step up in quality with the Ridgid tools...and I noticed the Dirt
Devil vacuum (another TTI brand) was cheaper than the one I bought 5-6 years
ago, but seems identical in power, etc. (not a durability problem: it was
stored at the top of basement stairs when we had a basement fire).

I have no idea how it will all shake out yet, nor am I enamored of one tool
company for all the world, which sometimes seems to be the way things are
headed with all these mergers, but I am curious as to where things will stand
next year at this time.




Charlie Self
"A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers." H. L. Mencken