Content about Minneapolis

Deere & Company has elected Cargill CEO Gregory R. Page to its board of directors. Cargill is an international producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products and services. 

Based in Minneapolis, the privately held company employs about 140,000 people in 65 countries and has annual sales of more than $130 billion.

Minneapolis-based The Valspar Corp. says it expanded its retail paint program with Lowe's, tailoring it to the needs of the professional painter.

The effort brings a line of Valspar Pro and dedicated in-store service to more than 1,700 Lowe’s retail locations, according to the manufacturer's announcement. 

Ace Hardware Corp.’s paint program is going through a major makeover with Valspar stepping up as a supplier and taking over the co-op’s paint manufacturing facilities. 

Ace and Valspar announced a long-term deal, under which Valspar will manufacture and supply Ace-branded paint products to Ace dealers. The companies also announced that Valspar has acquired Ace Hardware’s paint manufacturing assets, including two manufacturing facilities located near Chicago.

Minneapolis-based Valspar Corp., makers of paint, reported third-quarter sales of $1.08 billion, up 1% from the same quarter last year.

“We were pleased with our performance in the quarter,” said Gary Hendrickson, chairman and CEO. “Excluding negative currency impact, our revenue increased 3% and our strong earnings growth is the outcome of excellent execution in a challenging global environment.”

Allied Building Products Corp., a division of Oldcastle, has completed its acquisition of United Products Corp., a privately held roofing and siding distributor based in Minneapolis. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.

Founded in 1925, United was purchased in 1975 by Al and Char Hatfield, who grew the business to 15 branches across five states; seven in Minnesota, three each in Wisconsin and North Dakota, and one each in South Dakota and Nebraska.

Menards is planning to build a 300,000-sq.-ft. project in Richfield, a suburb of Minneapolis, to replace an existing unit, according to an article in the Star-Tribune.

The new two-story building, along with a lumberyard, garden center and warehouse, would require the demolition of the current store, along with a vacant restaurant called Jung Bo.

Two family-owned hardware stores, an Ace and a Do it Best, are going up against each other on the same block in Minneapolis, according to a news report on KSTP-TV. Although the owners remain friendly, the competition is not.

Lyman Lumber, the Excelsior, Minn.-based pro dealer, has been acquired by BlackEagle Partners, the parent company of US LBM Holdings. Serving the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area as well as parts of Wisconsin, Lyman Lumber includes lumberyards in Chanhassen, Minn., and Eau Claire, Wis., as well as Carpentry Contractors Corp. and Automated Building Components.

Lyman Lumber, a nine-unit LBM chain based in Excelsior, Minn., has signed a letter of intent to sell its operations to SP Asset Management, according to an article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal.The 114-year-old company also plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the article said. 

RockSolid Floors Polyurea Floor Coatings are taking the cans out of the equation for a more environmentally friendly product plus better product handling, according to the Minneapolis-based company.

The multi-layer Polyurea floor coating systems now feature advanced pouch technology. The kits still feature the same Polyurea floor coating formulas, providing 20 times the durability of epoxy floor paints.

There’s nothing like “free paint” to catch consumers’ attention, as Valspar learned during its recent “Power in Color” campaign. According to an article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, the manufacturer handed out 100,000 free paint-sample kits during the first 100 days of 2011, or 1,000 kits per day.

Parkway Hardware, an independent Minneapolis dealer, closed its doors last month due to the sluggish economy, according to an article in the Finance & Commerce.