Crane Group shift puts $1B goal into play
by Dan Eaton
Business First
New Arena District offices, additional jobs and a streamlined business are part of a Crane Group plan to become a $1 billion company by 2010.
The Columbus holding company has reorganized under two new subsidiaries - Crane Investment Co., which will manage the company's real estate holdings and private equity portfolio, and Crane Group Cos., which will oversee its nine service and manufacturing businesses.
"We're really trying to provide more focus to the different sides of our business," said Crane Group CEO Tanny Crane. "We have too many people wearing multiple hats."
Employees with the investment company will focus on that work and not be distracted by other segments of the business, she said. And grouping together the products and services operations should allow the company to better share technology and resources.
Crane said company officials once believed acquisitions would be the road to $1 billion in annual revenue, but the shake-up is expected to enable it to double sales without acquisitions and hit that mark in the next three years.
As part of the reorganization, between 10 and 20 relocated and new employees with the holding company and Crane Investment will move this summer to 10,000-square-foot offices at the Belmont Building in the Arena District. Crane said her main office will be included there, but she'll maintain an office at the company's Fairwood Avenue complex on the city's south side.
New look for Old Biz
The family-owned company may be best known as a manufacturer, but it has been involved in real estate and private equity investing for decades.
"It has been important for diversification," Crane said. "We grew up as a plastics company with PVC-based products. We used just one material and served only the building products and residential markets. (Real estate and private equity) was an investment strategy."
She declined to share the value of the company's real estate portfolio or how much it has invested in private companies.
Crane said the real estate holdings include marinas, apartment-to-condominium conversion projects, condos at Buckeye Lake and property in upstate New York. It also has investments in the Fort Rapids Indoor Waterpark Resort on the east side, the Columbus Blue Jackets pro hockey team, senior centers and a furniture company.
"In the investment community we're not that quiet," she said. "We're always looking for investment ideas."
The investment arm will be run by former Crane Group Chief Financial Officer Randy Fortener. Crane said the Arena District office will distance Crane Investment employees from distractions in other parts of the business and will put the unit closer to downtown partners.
Streamlining
Mike Crane, Tanny's cousin and CEO of its Crane Plastics business, becomes president of Crane Group Cos. overseeing all nine product and service businesses.
"Separating the investment from the operating units is going to help the day-to-day business," he said. "A lot of people were involved in both ends of the business."
Stu Kemper, former president of the company's TimberTech composite decking and railing business, will oversee Crane Group's two top earners - TimberTech and Crane Performance Siding - as president of its building products unit. The two businesses account for almost half of the company's $532 million in annual revenue.
The company hopes combining them will create selling opportunities.
"When a TimberTech representative goes out, they don't have to talk about just decking," Tanny Crane said. "They can talk about fencing, railing, siding - a number of products in one visit. ... We'll have someone selling to the national homebuilders. That is something we couldn't do individually."
She said all of the company's businesses are hiring - it employs more than 800 workers in the region - but she did not have a projection of how many jobs the changes might create.
The company, which is marking its 60th year, was founded by Robert Crane Sr. as Crane Plastics Co. In the business' last reorganization, it was divided up in 2000 into five business units that make up most of the building products division.
"By moving these units together now," Mike Crane said, "we'll be able to grow in the marketplace."
Crane Group Co.
Business: Holding company with businesses in plastic extrusion, composite decking, siding, roofing and marine products.
Based: Columbus
CEO: Tanny Crane
Owner: Crane family
Employees: 1,330
Area employees: 810
2006 revenue: $532 million
Web site: cranegroup.com
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