| Type | Public (NYSE: GFF) |
|---|---|
| Industry | General Building Materials |
| Founded | College Point, Queens, New York, United States (1959) |
| Headquarters | New York City |
| Key people | Ronald J. Kramer, President and CEO Harvey R. Blau, Chairman, non executive Douglas Wetmore, Executive Vice President and CFO Seth Kaplan, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary |
| Revenue | Pro-Forma $1.8 Billion USD (2010) |
| Employees | 5,700 (2010) |
| Website | www.griffoncorp.com |
Griffon Corporation (NYSE: GFF), founded in 1959, is a diversified manufacturing firm. Its primary divisions include, Home and Building Products (Clopay Doors and Ames), Clopay Plastics Products, and Telephonics Corporation. The company is known for manufacturing garage doors, landscaping products, specialty plastic films, and electronic information and communication systems, which it distributes through 48 service centers worldwide.
Griffon listed on the New York Stock Exchange in February 1993 and is a component stock of the S&P 600 SmallCap and S&P 1500 Super Comp indices.
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Griffon Corporation was founded in 1959, as Waldorf Controls Corp. and changed its name later that year to Instrument Systems Corp. The company's name remained Instrument Systems until 1995 when Griffon, the mythical half-eagle, half-lion, was chosen, symbolizing the combined strengths of the firm's different divisions. Initially, the company made electronic products for the military and commercial markets and was 25% owned by Emerson Radio & Phonograph Corp. In 1961, it acquired Telephonics Corporation. During the conglomerate era in the United States, the firm's divisions grew to 18, including an automotive group, home products group, packaging group, business machine group and building products group. However, the declining appeal of conglomerates, coupled with defense cutbacks brought about by the end of the Vietnam War, resulted in the sale of a number of the divisions during the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1986, however, with the purchase of Clopay Corporation, the firm began to expand again through acquisition.
Originally located in College Point, NY, the firm moved to Huntington, NY in 1968, to Jericho, NY, in 1980, and then to their current headquarters in [1] New York, NY in January 2010. It conducted an initial public offering of its shares in 1968, trading on the American Stock Exchange and moved its listing to the New York Stock Exchange in 1993.
Clopay Building Products is the largest residential garage door manufacturer and marketer in North America and a major supplier of industrial and commercial doors for the new construction, and repair and remodel markets.
Ames True Temper, Inc. ("ATT"), acquired on September 30, 2010, is a global provider of non-powered landscaping products. Their products include long handle tools; wheelbarrows; planters and lawn accessories; snow tools; striking tools; pruning tools; garden hoses and hose reels.
Plastics develops and produces embossed and laminated specialty plastic films used in a variety of hygienic, health-care and industrial markets worldwide, including disposable baby diapers, sanitary napkins and adult incontinent products. Its products are used by, among others, Always, Luvs, Pampers, and ThermaCare.
The company's electronic information and communication systems business, Telephonics, and Telephonics' wholly owned subsidiary, Telephonics Large Scale Integration ("TLSI"), develops and produces electronic systems used in government and commercial markets worldwide, including maritime surveillance radars for anti-submarine warfare, drug interdiction, search and rescue, high altitude mapping and surveillance. Its customers include the U.S. Government, as well as other government contractors, such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.