Hamilton Beach 2012 Annual Report Download - page 2

The First 100 Years
1913
Coal salesman Frank E. Taplin, Sr.
starts a coal brokerage firm called
The Cleveland & Western Coal
Company in Cleveland, Ohio.
On February 18, 2013, The North American Coal Corporation, the predecessor company
to NACCO Industries, Inc., marked the centennial of its founding and joined an elite group
of American companies that have been in business for 100 years or more. The achievement
of this milestone is worthy of celebration. Most business start-ups fail, typically within their
first five years.
Established in 1913 as a regional coal sales brokerage based in Cleveland, Ohio, North
American Coal is one of the country’s top 10 coal producers. It has nimbly reinvented its
business model several times in response to changing market conditions. Within a decade of
its incorporation the one-man brokerage had evolved into a vertically integrated corporation
with coal mining, dockyard and railroad subsidiaries. Produced in underground mines in
Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the company’s bituminous coal fueled trains and
stoked industrial and residential furnaces.
During the postwar years, North American Coal refocused its energies on providing
steam coal to the skyrocketing electrical power industry. With increasingly complex
regulations, in the 1970s the company began to withdraw from underground mining in
the East and broaden its involvement with surface mining in the West and Southwest.
North American Coal moved its corporate headquarters to Dallas, Texas, in 1988.
Today North American Coal mines and markets lignite coal primarily as fuel for
electrical power generation. In 2012, North American Coal returned to its historic roots
with the acquisition of three bituminous coal mines in central Alabama that produce steam
coal and metallurgical coal for the steel industry. North American Coal also provides dragline
mining services for independently owned limerock quarries in Florida and management
and engineering services to assist the development of coal mines overseas.
Alfred M. Rankin Jr., the current Chairman, President and CEO of Cleveland-based
NACCO Industries, joined the Company in 1989 from Eaton Corporation where he had
been Vice Chairman and COO. Rankin, whose grandfather, Frank E. Taplin, Sr., founded
North American Coal, became only the second family member in over 50 years to work
at the Company. Rankin encouraged the coal company’s expansion into new areas and
spearheaded the broader corporate diversification into entirely new businesses in the
1980s. Indeed, the consistent profitability of North American Coal prompted the creation
of NACCO Industries as the publicly traded holding company in 1986 to manage the
accelerating diversification program.
Financed by the coal company’s excess cash and the prudent use of leverage, NACCO
acquired subsidiaries in the lift truck and small appliance industries and in the specialty
retail field. As each of the companies in NACCO’s portfolio rationalized its manufacturing,
sales and distribution capabilities, gained market share, and achieved long-term profit growth
under Rankin’s strategic leadership, the parent company grew into a collection of businesses
with $3.3 billion of revenues. In 2012, NACCO spun off the $2.5 billion Hyster-Yale Materials
Handling subsidiary, a leading global manufacturer of lift trucks. Hyster-Yale is now an
independent public corporation traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
The timeline to the right captures some of the highlights and turning points in the
corporation’s history of opportunity seized and adversity overcome by successive generations of
steadfast company owners, insightful directors, visionary executives and dedicated employees.