Two Chicago-based companies – a railroad freightcar maker and an insurance brokerage – announced acquisitions Wednesday morning.
Chicago-based FreightCar America Inc., which makes and repairs railroad freight cars, said it plans to buy the business assets of DTE Rail Services, a non-regulated unit of DTE Energy, for $23.2 million in a deal expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2010.
The deal will bolster FreightCar’s parts and repair service capabilities for all types of freight-carrying railcars. FreightCar’s traditional expertise is in coal-carrying rail cars.
“The expansion of our railcar services activities will diversify our revenue sources and will lessen the cyclicality of our earnings” by getting the company more involved in the “entire railcar life cycle,” FreightCar Chief Executive Ed Whalen said in a statement.
The new business will add 130 employees to the company. DTE Rail has annual revenues of $25 million, and FreightCar expects the deal to add to its earnings immediately.
Meanwhile, insurance brokerage Hub International of Chicago said it has bought Sinclair Cockburn Financial Group, a Toronto-based insurance and financial services firm with $11 million in annual revenues.
In this article’s headline, the word acquisitions is misspelled. There’s a “c’ between “a” and “q.”
The word “acquisitions” is misspelled in your headline (and Daywatch link). There’s a “c” between “a” and “q.”