Heekin Can
Encyclopedia
Heekin Can, Inc. is a division of the Ball Corporation
that was formerly an independent company that was one of the largest metal can
manufacturers in the United States
.
, tea
, spice
s, extract
s, and baking powder
, packaged in tin can
s. After his can supplier increased prices in 1900, Heekin began to make his own cans. The can-manufacturing operation soon evolved into the Heekin Can Company, which not only supplied the Heekin Spice Company, but also made cans for other businesses.
James Heekin died in 1904, and one of his 15 children, James J. Heekin, took over the business. Under his leadership the company began using lithography
to add labeling and decoration to cans, and in the early 1900s it introduced the open-top cylinder
can. Known as the "sanitary" or "packers" can, this new design was soon adopted as an industry standard. In 1915 a second manufacturing facility was added, due in part to increasing demand from customer R.J. Reynolds Company. The new plant was described at one time as the United States' "largest metal lithographing plant under one roof."
Heekin Can remained under family ownership and management until 1965. James J. Heekin retired in 1928, when he was succeeded as company president by his brother Albert. Albert Heekin headed the business until 1948, when another brother, Daniel M. Heekin, assumed the presidency. Daniel, who had been president of the Can Manufacturers Institute
during World War II
, when manufacturers of consumer products faced widespread shortages of raw materials, oversaw a major expansion in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when Heekin added four new plants in Arkansas
and Tennessee
. Daniel Heekin was succeeded in 1954 by his nephew, Albert Heekin, Jr., who was to be the last family member to serve as head of the company started by his grandfather.
Under the leadership of Albert Heekin, Jr., Heekin continued to expand its production capacity and pioneered several technical innovations. A new modern production facility was built in Newtown, Ohio
, including coating and decorating equipment, sheet-metal cutting equipment, aluminum beverage-can production lines (known as "draw-and-iron" lines), and lines for producing weld
ed aerosol cans. Heekin invested heavily in research and development, and in 1959 patent
ed a plastic embossing process that allowed it to create "virtually any texture" on a can, as well as adding plastic
caps, closures, and other injection-molded
items to metal packaging. In 1962 construction began on a new manufacturing plant in Augusta, Wisconsin
, serving Bush Brothers
, a major customer. By 1964 Heekin operated eight production plants and had annual sales of about $30 million, making it the fifth-largest producer of metal containers in the United States.
in order to head off a possible hostile takeover. Initially Heekin was operated as a division of Diamond, but later it became a subsidiary. Under Diamond's ownership, the Heekin subsidiary diversified, adding polyethylene
bottles and other containers to its product lines.
Diamond was acquired in a 1982 hostile takeover by corporate raider Sir James Goldsmith. Because Heekin was at the time one of the most valuable components of the Diamond conglomerate
, it was quickly spun off to help finance Goldsmith's leveraged buyout
. Wesray Holdings Corporation
, headed by former U.S. Treasury Secretary William E. Simon
, acquired Heekin through a complex leveraged buyout transaction in which almost all of the purchase price of the company was obtained through Heekin's own cash reserves, loans and credit lines against Heekin's asset
s, and a sale-and-leaseback
arrangement for Heekin's facilities. In his autobiography, Simon said that Wesray contributed only one million dollars to buy a company worth $82.9 million, while the International Directory of Company Histories reports Wesray's contribution as only $250,000 and the total purchase price as $108.8 million.
for the first time with a $44-million public offering of 3.25 million shares of stock
, allowing Wesray to divest most of its holdings and significantly reducing the company's debt from the 1982 buyout. According to Simon's autobiography, Wesray realized a profit of $28 million from the sale of its Heekin holdings.
After going public, Heekin implemented a "back to basics" strategy in the late 1980s, returning to its historical emphasis on food cans by selling its aluminum can units to Reynolds Metals
and increasing its research and development expenditures in the areas of food cans and plastic containers. At the same time, food producers that manufactured their own cans (as Heekin had done in its early years) were selling off there can production facilities in order to concentrate on food production, and Heekin acquired plants from Stokely USA
, Quaker Oats Co., and Pittsburgh Metal Lithographing Co. Together with a new factory opened in 1987, these acquisitions helped to increase Heekin's production capacity by more than 20 percent. When labor unions at Newtown refused to accede to company demands for contract concessions, work was moved from Newtown to new facilities, reducing employment at Newtown from 720 to 380 in 1988. During the late 1980s, Heekin was profitable, recording annual sales increases from $207.5 million in 1986 to $336 million in 1989, and an increase of net annual income from $7 million to $13 million during the same period. It was well regarded for the quality of its management, and its stock price went from less than $14 per share in 1985 to $40 per share in 1990.
, Illinois
, Indiana
, Ohio
, Pennsylvania
, Tennessee
, West Virginia
, and Wisconsin
. In that year, the company agreed to be acquired by Ball Corporation for an exchange of stock. The transaction was completed in 1993, helping to make Ball the third-largest manufacturer of food containers in North America
. Heekin was merged into Ball's Metal Food Container and Specialty Products Group.
Ball Corp.
Ball Corporation , originally Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company, is an American company famous for producing glass canning jars. Founded in 1880, it is currently headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado. The company has expanded into other areas such as avionics, space systems, metal beverage...
that was formerly an independent company that was one of the largest metal can
Tin can
A tin can, tin , steel can, or a can, is a sealed container for the distribution or storage of goods, composed of thin metal. Many cans require opening by cutting the "end" open; others have removable covers. Cans hold diverse contents: foods, beverages, oil, chemicals, etc."Tin" cans are made...
manufacturers in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Establishment and operation as a family business
Heekin Can was founded in Cincinnati in 1901 by James Heekin (born December 8, 1843), proprietor of a business that sold food products, including coffeeCoffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
, tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
, spice
Spice
A spice is a dried seed, fruit, root, bark, or vegetative substance used in nutritionally insignificant quantities as a food additive for flavor, color, or as a preservative that kills harmful bacteria or prevents their growth. It may be used to flavour a dish or to hide other flavours...
s, extract
Extract
An extract is a substance made by extracting a part of a raw material, often by using a solvent such as ethanol or water. Extracts may be sold as tinctures or in powder form....
s, and baking powder
Baking powder
Baking powder is a dry chemical leavening agent used to increase the volume and lighten the texture of baked goods such as muffins, cakes, scones and American-style biscuits. Baking powder works by releasing carbon dioxide gas into a batter or dough through an acid-base reaction, causing bubbles in...
, packaged in tin can
Tin can
A tin can, tin , steel can, or a can, is a sealed container for the distribution or storage of goods, composed of thin metal. Many cans require opening by cutting the "end" open; others have removable covers. Cans hold diverse contents: foods, beverages, oil, chemicals, etc."Tin" cans are made...
s. After his can supplier increased prices in 1900, Heekin began to make his own cans. The can-manufacturing operation soon evolved into the Heekin Can Company, which not only supplied the Heekin Spice Company, but also made cans for other businesses.
James Heekin died in 1904, and one of his 15 children, James J. Heekin, took over the business. Under his leadership the company began using lithography
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
to add labeling and decoration to cans, and in the early 1900s it introduced the open-top cylinder
Cylinder (geometry)
A cylinder is one of the most basic curvilinear geometric shapes, the surface formed by the points at a fixed distance from a given line segment, the axis of the cylinder. The solid enclosed by this surface and by two planes perpendicular to the axis is also called a cylinder...
can. Known as the "sanitary" or "packers" can, this new design was soon adopted as an industry standard. In 1915 a second manufacturing facility was added, due in part to increasing demand from customer R.J. Reynolds Company. The new plant was described at one time as the United States' "largest metal lithographing plant under one roof."
Heekin Can remained under family ownership and management until 1965. James J. Heekin retired in 1928, when he was succeeded as company president by his brother Albert. Albert Heekin headed the business until 1948, when another brother, Daniel M. Heekin, assumed the presidency. Daniel, who had been president of the Can Manufacturers Institute
Can Manufacturers Institute
The Can Manufacturers Institute is a trade association of United States manufacturers and suppliers of metal cans.The Can Manufacturers Institute was chartered in 1938...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when manufacturers of consumer products faced widespread shortages of raw materials, oversaw a major expansion in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when Heekin added four new plants in Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
and Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
. Daniel Heekin was succeeded in 1954 by his nephew, Albert Heekin, Jr., who was to be the last family member to serve as head of the company started by his grandfather.
Under the leadership of Albert Heekin, Jr., Heekin continued to expand its production capacity and pioneered several technical innovations. A new modern production facility was built in Newtown, Ohio
Newtown, Ohio
Newtown is a village in southeastern Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, near Cincinnati. The population was 2,420 at the 2000 census.Newtown was first settled in 1792 under the name of Mercersburg. The name was changed before the village incorporated in 1901.-History:Multiple Native American...
, including coating and decorating equipment, sheet-metal cutting equipment, aluminum beverage-can production lines (known as "draw-and-iron" lines), and lines for producing weld
Welding
Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. This is often done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material to form a pool of molten material that cools to become a strong joint, with pressure sometimes...
ed aerosol cans. Heekin invested heavily in research and development, and in 1959 patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
ed a plastic embossing process that allowed it to create "virtually any texture" on a can, as well as adding plastic
Plastic
A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs...
caps, closures, and other injection-molded
Injection molding
Injection molding is a manufacturing process for producing parts from both thermoplastic and thermosetting plastic materials. Material is fed into a heated barrel, mixed, and forced into a mold cavity where it cools and hardens to the configuration of the cavity...
items to metal packaging. In 1962 construction began on a new manufacturing plant in Augusta, Wisconsin
Augusta, Wisconsin
Augusta is a city in Eau Claire County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,550 at the 2010 census. The city is located entirely within the Town of Bridge Creek.-Geography:Augusta is located at ....
, serving Bush Brothers
Bush Brothers and Company
Bush Brothers and Company is a family-owned corporation based in Knoxville, Tennessee, best known for its baked beans and more than forty other related products. It operates plants in Augusta, Wisconsin, and Chestnut Hill, Tennessee.-History:...
, a major customer. By 1964 Heekin operated eight production plants and had annual sales of about $30 million, making it the fifth-largest producer of metal containers in the United States.
Diamond International acquisition and leveraged buyouts
In 1965, Albert Heekin, Jr., decided to sell the family business to Diamond InternationalDiamond Match Company
The Diamond Match Company was the largest manufacturer of matches in the United States in the late nineteenth century. Jarden is the current owner of the Diamond brand.-History:...
in order to head off a possible hostile takeover. Initially Heekin was operated as a division of Diamond, but later it became a subsidiary. Under Diamond's ownership, the Heekin subsidiary diversified, adding polyethylene
Polyethylene
Polyethylene or polythene is the most widely used plastic, with an annual production of approximately 80 million metric tons...
bottles and other containers to its product lines.
Diamond was acquired in a 1982 hostile takeover by corporate raider Sir James Goldsmith. Because Heekin was at the time one of the most valuable components of the Diamond conglomerate
Conglomerate (company)
A conglomerate is a combination of two or more corporations engaged in entirely different businesses that fall under one corporate structure , usually involving a parent company and several subsidiaries. Often, a conglomerate is a multi-industry company...
, it was quickly spun off to help finance Goldsmith's leveraged buyout
Leveraged buyout
A leveraged buyout occurs when an investor, typically financial sponsor, acquires a controlling interest in a company's equity and where a significant percentage of the purchase price is financed through leverage...
. Wesray Holdings Corporation
Wesray Capital Corporation
Wesray Capital Corporation was an early private equity firm focussing on leveraged buyout investments. The firm was founded by former US Secretary of the Treasury William E...
, headed by former U.S. Treasury Secretary William E. Simon
William E. Simon
William Edward Simon was a businessman, a Secretary of Treasury of the U.S. for three years, and a philanthropist. He became the 63rd Secretary of the Treasury on May 8, 1974, during the Nixon administration. He was reappointed by President Ford and served until 1977. Outside of government, he was...
, acquired Heekin through a complex leveraged buyout transaction in which almost all of the purchase price of the company was obtained through Heekin's own cash reserves, loans and credit lines against Heekin's asset
Asset
In financial accounting, assets are economic resources. Anything tangible or intangible that is capable of being owned or controlled to produce value and that is held to have positive economic value is considered an asset...
s, and a sale-and-leaseback
Leaseback
Leaseback, short for sale-and-leaseback, is a financial transaction, where one sells an asset and leases it back for the long-term; therefore, one continues to be able to use the asset but no longer owns it...
arrangement for Heekin's facilities. In his autobiography, Simon said that Wesray contributed only one million dollars to buy a company worth $82.9 million, while the International Directory of Company Histories reports Wesray's contribution as only $250,000 and the total purchase price as $108.8 million.
Public company
In 1985 Heekin went publicPublic company
This is not the same as a Government-owned corporation.A public company or publicly traded company is a limited liability company that offers its securities for sale to the general public, typically through a stock exchange, or through market makers operating in over the counter markets...
for the first time with a $44-million public offering of 3.25 million shares of stock
Stock
The capital stock of a business entity represents the original capital paid into or invested in the business by its founders. It serves as a security for the creditors of a business since it cannot be withdrawn to the detriment of the creditors...
, allowing Wesray to divest most of its holdings and significantly reducing the company's debt from the 1982 buyout. According to Simon's autobiography, Wesray realized a profit of $28 million from the sale of its Heekin holdings.
After going public, Heekin implemented a "back to basics" strategy in the late 1980s, returning to its historical emphasis on food cans by selling its aluminum can units to Reynolds Metals
Reynolds Metals
Reynolds Group Holdings is an American packaging company with its roots in the Reynolds Metals Company, was the second largest aluminum company in the United States, and the third largest in the world...
and increasing its research and development expenditures in the areas of food cans and plastic containers. At the same time, food producers that manufactured their own cans (as Heekin had done in its early years) were selling off there can production facilities in order to concentrate on food production, and Heekin acquired plants from Stokely USA
Van Camp's
Van Camp’s is a brand of canned beans currently owned by ConAgra Foods, Inc. Their products typically consist of beans stewed in a flavored sauce...
, Quaker Oats Co., and Pittsburgh Metal Lithographing Co. Together with a new factory opened in 1987, these acquisitions helped to increase Heekin's production capacity by more than 20 percent. When labor unions at Newtown refused to accede to company demands for contract concessions, work was moved from Newtown to new facilities, reducing employment at Newtown from 720 to 380 in 1988. During the late 1980s, Heekin was profitable, recording annual sales increases from $207.5 million in 1986 to $336 million in 1989, and an increase of net annual income from $7 million to $13 million during the same period. It was well regarded for the quality of its management, and its stock price went from less than $14 per share in 1985 to $40 per share in 1990.
Ball acquisition
As of 1992 Heekin was deemed to be the largest regional manufacturer of metal food containers in the United States, with 11 manufacturing plants, located in ArkansasArkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
, and Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
. In that year, the company agreed to be acquired by Ball Corporation for an exchange of stock. The transaction was completed in 1993, helping to make Ball the third-largest manufacturer of food containers in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. Heekin was merged into Ball's Metal Food Container and Specialty Products Group.
External links
- Heekin Can Company Picnic Bucket, Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
- The Heekin Hercules, in "An Illustrated History of the American Beer Can"