Overland Park, Kan.-Compass Minerals said April 6 that it has acquired the salt business of Cutler-Magner Co., Duluth, Minn. The terms of the $3.6 million deal include the purchase of the salt processing and packaging assets and the customer list of Cutler-Magner, as well as the lease of its operating site, which includes an efficient highway deicing depot. Cutler-Magner’s total sales for 2008 were approximately $15 million. Cutler-Magner’s 100-year-old salt division packages and sells consumer and professional deicing, water care, and agricultural salt products to customers in Minnesota, the Dakotas, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Salt products will continue to be marketed under the Cutler-Magner name as well as the many brands produced by Compass Minerals’ U.S. subsidiary, North American Salt Co. “This highly synergistic acquisition reflects our persistent and disciplined focus on building sustainable, profitable, long-term value for our shareholders,” said Angelo Brisimitzakis, Compass Minerals’ president and CEO. “Cutler-Magner is a strong regional provider of branded salt products. With this increased processing and packaging capacity, we will enhance the product offering and service capability of our consumer and industrial business in the upper Midwest. The acquisition also strengthens our highway deicing presence in our key northern Great Lakes sales region. In addition, the site can utilize salt from Compass Minerals’ mine in Goderich, Ont., leveraging our ongoing multi-phased expansion of the world’s largest rock salt mine.” The acquired assets also include a capability for producing treated highway deicing salt, thus making Compass Minerals’ ThawroxTM high-performance specialty deicing products more readily available in the region.
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