Tag - Acu

Back in the days of the Johnson presidency – Andrew, not Lyndon – a little company began as a grinding shop in Bridgeport, Conn., to make scissors and keep them honed to perfection in a post Civil War America.
 
The little grinding shop, formed in 1867 as a local partnership and incorporated in 1882, was known for decades as Acme Shear. From its incorporation until the 1990s, the Wheeler family ran the show, before Walter Johnsen came in as president and chief executive officer in 1995.

Now headquartered in Fairfield, Conn., Acme has morphed into Acme United Corp. (AMEX: ACU). The company has sprung from its Americana small-business roots into a global provider of some basic products: as it says in its annual report, “innovative cutting, measuring and safety products to the school, home, office and industrial markets.” It has manufacturing and distribution facilities in the United States, Germany, Canada and Asia, yet it remains a microcap, with just about $50 million in market capitalization.
 
Its products might be considered mundane, but the range is fairly diverse. Most schoolkids and their parents should recognize one of its main brands – Westcott, a name that’s been around since 1872 – through which it sells rulers, scissors, letter openers, paper cutters and other items. It also makes house brands of those basic products for retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT), and office superstores including Staples Inc. (Nasdaq: SPLS) and OfficeMax Inc. (NYSE: OMX).