Equipment Report

Metso Minerals has acquired Texas Shredder Inc. (TSI), a supplier of metal shredder products headquartered in San Antonio.

The sellers are a group of private investors led by Capital Southwest Corp., a venture capital investment company based in Dallas.

The price of the acquisition is about $16 million.

According to a press release, Texas Shredder has unaudited net sales of about $56.5 million for the most recent fiscal year.

With the acquisition, Metso Minerals considerably expands its presence in the North American scrap metal recycling market, as TSI has more than 60 shredding plants installed. Texas Shredder’s line also complements Metso’s downstream technology solutions and aftermarket capabilities, according to the companies.

Texas Shredder will be merged with Metso Minerals’ current metal recycling operations to form Metso Texas Shredder Inc.

According to the joint announcement, Metso’s recycling business has developed favorably since it became part of Metso Minerals in the Svedala acquisition of 2001. Net sales have nearly doubled in two years. Following the acquisition of TSI, net sales are expected to reach $245 million.

Metso has also announced the sale of an $8.6 million shredder line to Makiura Steel Work Co. Ltd.’s recycling plant in Himeji City, Japan. Metso expects delivery to be completed by August 2006.

The sale includes a metal shredder, a complete downstream system for ferrous and nonferrous separation and de-dusting and a double-screw extrusion system for processing the light fraction.

Makiura is one of Japan’s leading metal recycling firms, and the new line will reportedly make it the country’s leading auto residue processor.

Lubo USA, the North American distributor of TiTech optical sorting equipment and Lubo screening equipment, has placed seven new TiTech units with recyclers in the United States.

Recycle America Alliance (RAA) of Minneapolis has purchased two TiTech PolySort 2000 units to sort mixed plastics from RAA’s container stream.

Pacifica International, City of Industry, Calif., has purchased four TiTech ColourSort R 1400 units to sort PET by color and to remove non-PET items, such as PVC and all other plastics, aluminum, paper and trash.

Deffenbaugh Recycling, Kansas City, Kan., has purchased a PolySort 1000 to be installed in its Bollegraaf single-stream plant to automatically sort mixed plastics out of the company’s commingled container stream.

Additional information on Lubo USA equipment is available online at www.lubousa.com.

GENESIS INTRODUCES MULTI-JAW ATTACHMENT

Genesis Attachments, Superior, Wis., has introduced the Logix Processor (LXP).

The multi-jawed attachment has both pulverizer and shear jaw sets. The attachment is available in four sizes to fit excavators in the 20-, 30-, 40- and 50-metric ton class.

According to Mark Ramun, Genesis’ director of product development, the LXP’s design helps make jaw changeover easier. "We had long been hearing from demolition and recycling professionals, that, while they like the concept of a multiple jaw tool, they often dread changing jaws because of the ordeal it can become—sometimes monopolizing workers for as long as four hours. By anyone’s standards, that’s tough to justify," Ramun says.

Each LXP jaw retains its own pivot group, which means jaw sets can be changed out by hydraulically releasing one jaw and hydraulically adding the other, in quick-coupler fashion, Ross Christenson, Genesis research and development engineer, says.

More information about the LXP and the rest of the Genesis line is available online at www.genesisequip.com.