October 17, 2006

Star Cutter Co., Farmington Hills, MI, announced the acquisition by stock purchase of Northern Tool Sales & Service (NTSS), Warren, MI, effective October 31, 2006.

Star Cutter Company manufactures gear hobbing and shaping cutting tools, milling cutters, gundrills and reamers, carbide tools, PCD tools, and drills and sells through its go-to-market partner, Star SU LLC.  Star Cutter plans to integrate all NTSS customers with Star Cutter and Star SU.

Brad Lawton, president of Star Cutter, said  “This acquisition is synergistic, as well as complementary, to our market strategy for tool sales worldwide.”

Northern Tool Sales & Service is a design and build manufacturer of innovative tooling concepts for  special drills, reamers, step drills,form tools and solid carbide tooling to approximately 170 customers in the competitive ABS systems, cylinder head and engine block manufacturing industries.

Chris Schulte, president of Northern Tool Sales & Service, stated “The sale to Star Cutter increases our ability to utilize the best technology of both corporations to increase our market penetration and service to our existing and potential customer base through Star SU.”

Star Cutter Company is a privately held corporation and is headquartered in Farmington Hills, MI with multiple manufacturing units throughout MI.  Star also manufacturers a line of tool grinding machines in Elk Rapids, MI.

Star SU is the go-to-market enterprise of the Star Cut Sales Co. of Farmington Hills, MI, SU America, Inc., the US sales and manufacturing unit to Samputensili, S.p.A., Winco Industries, Tipp City, OH, and Bourn & Koch Inc., Rockford, IL.  The headquarters of Star SU is located in Hoffman Estates, IL (Chicago).

For further information contact Brian W. Cluff, Vice President, Star SU LLC, 5200 Prairie Stone Parkway, Suite 100, Hoffman Estates, IL 60192.  Tel.  847-649-1470, Fax 847-649-0112; email: bcluff@star-su.com.