Ingersoll-Rand finishes Trane acquisition deal

La Crosse Tribune, Jun 6, 2008 by Cahalan, Steve

Ingersoll-Rand Co. completed its acquisition Thursday of Trane Inc. after Trane shareholders approved the sale at a special morning meeting at headquarters in Piscataway, NJ.

Ingersoll-Rand, based in Bermuda, said holders of Trane's approximately 200 million common shares will receive a combination of $36.50 in cash and 0.23 shares of Ingersoll-Rand common stock for each Trane share.

The two companies announced the planned acquisition in December. The deal gives Ingersoll-Rand, which makes Thermo King refrigerated trucks and Hussmann refrigerated display cases, access to Trane's building and transportation cooling systems.

"As we communicated in December, there will be very few if any changes to most Trane operations," Ingersoll-Rand spokesman Paul Dickard told the Tribune in a telephone interview. "That certainly applies to La Crosse."

Dickard added the company is studying whether a data center and telecommunications function at Trane in La Crosse should remain or be outsourced. That operation has about 88 employees in La Crosse, he said.

The Trane name will continue, Dickard said. "Certainly Trane is a strong brand that we fully intend to keep and support."

Later, Mayor Mark Johnsrud said Trane officials have told him they expect the sale to result in very little change in production at the company's La Crosse facilities.

About 2,150 people were working at Trane's La Crosse facilities as of Monday, and another 126 hourly production workers were on layoff. Trane was founded in La Crosse in 1913 and bought by American Standard in 1984.

American Standard Cos. Inc. was renamed Trane Inc. on Nov. 28, after selling off its plumbing fixture business and spinning off a unit that makes auto braking systems earlier in 2007.

Johnsrud said he would have preferred that Trane remain independent.

"I'm more comfortable" with its acquisition by Ingersoll-Rand than when the deal was announced in December, Johnsrud said. "I'm still not 100 percent satisfied that we're going to have a commitment to build new products here," he added.

Johnsrud said he hopes Ingersoll-Rand is committed to investing in Trane's La Crosse facilities and in having new products made there.

"I think Ingersoll-Rand is a good fit for Trane," said Rick Mickschl, Machinists District Lodge 66 directing business representative. "They're a global company," the union leader said. "I think La Crosse is a good manufacturing location. The upper Midwest has a great work force, and we welcome them."

Mickschl declined to predict whether the sale will have any effect on the number of Trane production workers in La Crosse.

"I don't have a crystal ball to say where employment will go," he said. Ingersoll-Rand is a diversified company, which may provide new sales leads for Trane, he said.