Company Notes – August 2006

• Braxton-Bragg Corp. launches www.braxtonbragg.com, offering direct ordering online of products, with shipping from the company’s warehouses in Knoxville, Tenn., and Fresno, Calif. The site will also feature daily and weekly updates alerting users to new products and sales, as well as downloadable MSDS sheets, vendor links and tool and blade repair information.
• Buechel Stone Corp. receives a $1 million loan from the state of Wisconsin to help finance a $5.8 million expansion of its building and landscaping stone plant in Chilton, Wis. The project includes the construction and equipping of a 62,000 ft² production facility and office; the expansion will allow the Fond du Lac, Wis.-based company to produce natural thin-veneer stone more efficiently and enable the firm to meet growing demand for the product.
• The new Website for Pedrini S.p.A. is active at www.pedrini.it. The updated version, with its new layout and contents, aims at offering customers, suppliers and others more-complete information on the company and its products. The site is focused on raising the level of offered services, in a perspective of great modernity and transparency.
• Ursvikens Mekaniska Verkstads AB, a subsidiary of Stockholm-based Karolin Machine Tool AB (KMT) received two U.S. orders in 2Q 2006 totaling an approximate 20 million kronor ($2.76 million). One order is a press brake with press power of 1500 U.S. tons with a press length 6.5 meters; the other is a machinery restoration contract of two guillotine shears and two press brakes at a factory hit hard by last year’s Hurricane Katrina. KMT’s U.S. operations include KMT Waterjet Systems in Baxter Springs, Kan.
• Bennett Stone & Tile Co. of Eugene, Ore., opened a 20,000 ft² facility in Portland, Ore., in late June, extending its line of Roca Cerámica tile products, CAMBRIA® quartz surfacing, natural stone and other materials to the greater Portland area. Since its inception in 1990, Bennett Stone & Tile Co. has fabricated and installed thousands of kitchens and bathrooms, and supplied more than one million square feet of stone, porcelain and ceramic tile throughout primarily central and southern Oregon.
• China Granite Corp. changed its name to Strategic Rare Earth Metals Inc., effective June 30, 2006. Management and directors believe the name change is necessary to reflect the Miami-based company’s new primary business focus.