Family-owned corporations buy CC’s AMG

By Chris Baldus, cbaldus@charlescitypress.com

The sale of Charles City-headquartered Allied Mannatts Group, LLC puts local operations in the hands of two northeast Iowa family-owned corporations, both of which are looking to hire as many AMG employees as possible.

New Hampton-based Croell Redi-Mix, Inc. has purchased AMG’s paving and redi-mix concrete operations and Decorah-based Bruening Rock Products, Inc. is taking over AMG’s aggregates division. AMG ceased all operations on Friday, Jan. 22

AMG Presidents Graham Cuninghame announced the news to vendors in a letter dated Jan. 21. “We thank you for your service to us over the past years and wish you the best in the future,” he wrote.

Croell and Bruening officials said they are trying to hire as many of AMG’s employees as possible and will be involved in the communities AMG served.

“I don’t want anybody to to lose their job,” Kurt Croell, president of Croell Redi-Mix, Inc., said, adding that the company had job openings it was trying to fill before the purchase.

He thinks his company has room for almost all the AMG employees that want to come, he said.

“We need a lot of people,” he said.

Croell Redi-Mix, Inc. already had a strong presence in the area. Overall it has 80 redi-mix and more than 50 quarries in locations in six states. Locally, Croell has redi-mix locations in New Hampton, Nashua and Greene. It also has aggregates sites in Plainfield, Clarksville, Rockford, Greene and Floyd.

AMG and Croell Redi-Mix have been competitors in the region, and Croell respects its workers.

“They were a hard competitor and it’s really our honor to be able to purchase them,” he said.

He hopes to run the paving crews as they had been constituted under AMG. They’ll be joining a company that has been very successful with its paving, he said.

The building that was the base of AMG operations was part of the sale. Croell Redi-Mix will use it, but many details are still being worked out, he said.

The Decorah-based Bruening Rock Products, Inc., has hired AMG employees already and plans to take on more.

“Right now we’ve hired 10 of 15 employees,” said Keith Bruening, secretary and treasurer of Bruening Rock Products. They company will likely run the newly acquired operations as they always had been run, he said.

Bruening Rock Products had about 450 employees before the purchase and likely will have around 480 with the acquisition, he said.

“We’re really excited about it,” he said. “It’s a big deal for us and hopefully a good deal for the AMG employees.”

The AMG acquisition will join the Bruening Rock Products company called Skyline Materials.

Bruening Rock Products began in the 1932 with Leo Bruening hauling coal from the railroads with his one truck. The company now has more than 100 quarries in Iowa, Missouri and Minnesota supplying crushed stone and rock used in concrete and asphalt for road and other construction work as well as landscaping and drainage.

Bruening said the company typically banks in the communities in which it has an office and it will support the school system and community. It’s just something the company feels it should do, he said.

“We owe it to the town to give back,” he said.

The purchase moves Bruening Rock Products, which has operations in Howard, Chickasaw and Buchanan counties, a bit more to the west, he said.