Acme Grinding Finds Buyer

Jason Sandefur

Acme Grinding Inc., which was set to close its doors at the end of November, was purchased by a local company, general manager Kevin Thompson told FIN. The name of the buyer was not disclosed. Thompson said Acme Grinding will continue to operate in the same location under new ownership and current management. Rockford, IL-based Acme grinds or finishes fasteners and other components for the auto industry. Thompson welcomed the acquisition.
“Acme has been around for 57 years. As long as any of my people have a job, it’s a good thing,” he stated. Acme employs a total of nine people.

Former owner Judy Pike, who had been with Acme Grinding for 38 years, told Agence France Presse that she would shut the business down unless she could sell what was left of the operation. “If I was 40, I would hang on in there and take out a second mortgage, but I’m 63, I can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel and it’s time to think how I’m going to manage my retirement,” Pike stated.
Pike scaled back her employees’ work hours and laid off staff as work dried up over the past two years, Agence France Press reported.
A major blow came when one of Acme�s primary clients, Textron Fastening Systems, announced in October it would close two more of its Rockford facilities in 2004. Textron blamed excess capacity for the closings and the elimination of about 700 jobs, but Pike said cheap foreign imports were the real problem.
“A lot of the fastening business is going to China,” she said. “It costs U.S. manufacturers more to buy the materials than it costs the Chinese to produce them.”
Web: acmegrinding.com �2003 FastenerNews.com