Moving Metal

carbon steel, twenty percent in aluminum, and fifteen percent in stainless steel. Precision Strip’s principal customers were carbon steel, stainless steel, and aluminum mills, but it also directly served customers in the automotive, appliance, metal furniture, and capital goods industries. It had plants in Kenton, Middletown, and Tipp City, Ohio; Anderson and Rockport, Indiana; Bowling Green, Kentucky; and Talladega, Alabama. Although Precision Strip collected only service fees, Reliance estimated the total value of metals products processed by Precision Strip at $2 billion per year. The acquisition was consonant with Reliance’s ongoing emphasis on product, customer, and geographic diversifica- tion, and it promised to help smooth out bumps like those Reliance experienced in the recession of the early 2000s. It also gave Reliance a new sense of what was possible. As Reliance Director Douglas Hayes noted, “The Precision Strip acqui- sition was very important in giving the company, the Board, and management confidence that we could buy big compa- nies, and that we weren’t betting the company on every big acquisition.” By September 2003, most of the industries that Reliance served had begun to recover. Hannah told Modern Metals , “We are very proud of what we did in 2001, 2002, and 2003. We didn’t change our focus.” As a result, the stage was set for a major economic recovery, record returns for Reliance, and more acquisitions to come.

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