Armstrong World Industries

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Armstrong World Industries, Inc.

Type of Company	Corporation
Founded	Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Headquarters	Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Key people	Michael D. Lockhart, Chairman & CEO
Industry	Construction Materials
Products	Flooring Ceilings Cabinetry Tiles
Revenue	$3.56 billion (2005)
Employees	14,600 worldwide
Slogan	Your Ideas Become Reality
Website	Armstrong.com

Armstrong World Industries, Inc. is an international designer and manufacturer of floors, ceilings and cabinets. Based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Armstrong operates 41 plants in 12 countries and has approximately 16,000 employees worldwide. Armstrong World Industries is the operating subsidiary of Armstrong Holdings, Inc. (OTCBB: ACKHQ), and its only substantial asset. In 2005, Armstrong’s net sales were $3.56 billion, with profits of $101 million.

1 Chapter 11 Reorganization
2 History
3 Diversions
4 Production
5 See also

[edit] Chapter 11 Reorganization

When a United States corporation is unable to meet all its obligations in a timely manner, the officers are required to petition the federal bankruptcy courts to come up with a plan by which all creditors are treatedly in a fair manner. On December 6, 2000, Armstrong World Industries filed such a petition with the federal bankruptcy courts in Delaware for reorganization under Chapter 11, because pending asbestos injury claims appeared to exceed the value of the company, and were growing.

Armstrong World Industries has a number of subsidiaries, including not only non-US operating companies such as Armstrong Canada, Armstrong DLW AG and Desso in Europe, but also Armstrong Wood Products (formerly known as Triangle Pacific) and WAVE (a joint venture with Worthington Industries to product ceiling grid systems). Neither the subsidiaries, nor Armstrong Holdings were included in the reorganization filing.

With a 60-page decision, Judge Eduardo Robreno approved a reorganization plan for the company on August 16, 2006. The parent company, Armstrong Holdings, is to be dissolved and its stock canceled, leaving current stockholders with nothing. A new corporation will be created, with two-thirds of the stock going to a trust that will pay asbestos-injury claims, and a third given to unsecured creditors.^[1] The company expects to implement the reorganization plan by December 2006. The bankruptcy process will have taken six years, instead of the three originally projected. The company has spent at least $47 million just on bankruptcy-related legal costs in the three years prior to Robreno's decision.

[edit] History

In 1860, Thomas M. Armstrong, the son of Scotch-Irish immigrants from Londonderry, joined with John D. Glass to open a one-room shop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, carving bottle stoppers from cork by hand. Their first deliveries were made in a wheelbarrow. He was a business pioneer in some respects: he branded each cork he shipped as early as 1864, and soon was putting a written guarantee in each burlap bag of corks he shipped from his big new factory. The company grew to be the largest cork supplier in the world by the 1890s. The company incorporated in 1891.

Cork began being displaced by other closures, but the company introduced insulating corkboard and brick. In 1906, two years before he died, Thomas Armstrong concluded that the solid foundation of the future was covered with linoleum, and construction began on a new factory in a cornfield at the edge of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 1909, Armstrong linoleum was first offered to the trade.

After corkboard, the logical move was to fiberboard, and then to ceiling board. Cork tile and linoleum led to vinyl flooring, then ceramic tile, laminate flooring and carpeting.

[edit] Diversions

In the 1920s, the Armstrong Cork Products Company and Sherwin Williams company were the largest industrial customers for hemp fiber.

In 1938, Armstrong bought Whitall Tatum, a leading manufacturer of glass stand-off insulators for utility poles since 1922. The existing molds were eventually replaced with molds bearing the Armstrong name. In April 1969, the business was sold to Kerr Glass Manufacturing Corporation. Demand was rapidly dropping, as utilities were converting to ceramics or going underground, and Kerr moved production to their Dunkirk, Indiana factory in the mid-1970s, and ceasing production several years after that.

During World War II, Armstrong made 50-caliber round ammunition, wing tips for airplanes, cork sound insulation for submarines, and camouflage.

In 1952, a group of leading industrialists that included Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors, Frank W. Abrams of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, Henry Ford II of Ford Motor Company, John L. McCaffrey of International Harvester, Irving S. Olds of United States Steel Corporation, Henning W. Prentis of Armstrong Cork Company, and Laird Bell of Weyerhauser Timber formed the Council for Financial Aid to Education, which increased corporate gifts to colleges from $24 million annually to $136 million annually over ten years.

In 1958, Armstrong Cork Company created "Armstrong Contracting and Supply Corporation". Armstrong Cork had done insulation contracting since the early 20th century, originally focusing on cork products. Gradually, there was greater emphasis on high temperature insulation. In 1969, this business was sold in a leveraged buyout to 31 existing and retired employees of the contracting company, which became Irex Corporation.

C.U.E., Inc. started as the Polyurethane Division of Armstrong Cork in the 1960s. CUE comes from "Custom Urethane Elastomers" The Fluorocarbon Company of Anaheim, California bought the division in 1972. On April 7th, 1986, a group of seven employees acquired the division, in a leveraged buyout.

In 1964, Armstrong bought Phoenix Chair Company, following up with Founders Furniture Company in 1965, Western Carolina Furniture Company in 1966, and both Thomasville Furniture and Caldwell Furniture in 1968. In the 1970s, they expanded with a low-end bedroom furniture line. They bought Gilliam Furniture in 1986, built a new factory in Carysbrook, Virginia later that year, bought Westchester Group in 1987, and Gordon's in 1988; as well as making a major expansion to Thomasville that year. In 1995, the business was sold to Furniture Brands International, the leading manufacturer of residential furniture, with such brands as Broyhill, Lane, and Drexel Heritage.

[edit] Production

The company manufactures flooring products in the US in Beech Creek, Pennsylvania, Beverly, West Virginia, Center, Texas, Jackson, Mississippi, Jackson, Tennessee, Kankakee, Illinois, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Nashville, Tennessee, Oneida, Tennessee, Somerset, Kentucky, South Gate, California, Statesville, North Carolina, Stillwater, Oklahoma, Warren, Arkansas and West Plains, Missouri, and internationally in Braeside, Victoria, Thomastown, Victoria, Montreal, Quebec, Teesside, Thornaby, and Holmsund, Sweden.

They produce ceiling products in the US in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, Hilliard, Ohio, Macon, Georgia, Marietta, Pennsylvania, Mobile, Alabama, Pensacola, Florida, and St. Helens, Oregon, and internationally in Rankweil, Austria, Shanghai, China, Stafford, England, Team Valley, England, Pontarlier, France, Munster, Germany, St. Gallen, Switzerland, and Zurich, Switzerland.

They product cabinets in Auburn, Nebraska and Thompsontown, Pennsylvania.

Armstrong World Industries subsidiaries include Armstrong Wood Products, Inc., Armstrong Hardwood Flooring Company, Armstrong DLW AG, Tapijtfabrick H. Dessaux N.V. (Desso), and Armstrong Metalldecken Holding AG.

There are WAVE plants in Benton Harbor, Michigan, Henderson, Nevada, Aberdeen, Maryland, Shanghai, China, Prouvy, France, Team Valley, England and Madrid, Spain. WAVE is a joint venture with Worthington Industries.

There are ADE facilities in Dendermonde, Belgium and Waasmunster, Belgium, Bissingen, Germany and Delmenhorst, Germany]] and Waalwijk, Netherlands.