Valmont

In January 1996, the first production light poles rolled off the line at Valmont's Shanghai plant, which was completed in December 1995. Valmont became the majority owner of Valmont Industries (China) Ltd. in 1995, in partnership with Shanghai Special Shaped Steel Tubing Company, Limited, a publicly traded company on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The new plant can produce over 100,000 poles annually.

Expanding in Europe, Valmont purchased a majority interest in Gibo-Conimast, a German manufacturer and distributor of pole structures for the lighting market in May, 1996. Headquartered in Paderborn with its manufacturing facility located in Gelsenkirchen, Gibo-Conimast allowed the Company to broaden its participation in the German markets. Valmont also began manufacturing light poles at its plant located in Siedlce, Poland, in July 1997. The Poland facility complements Valmont's other European pole production operations and allows the company to expand its customer base throughout central and Eastern Europe. To further enhance the Company's ability to serve southern Europe and Africa, the Company entered into a joint venture in 2000 with a large industrial company in Mexico to manufacture steel poles in Monterrey. In 2001, the company purchased a pole plant in Morocco.

In 1998, Valmont acquired Cascade Earth Sciences, a firm that specializes in the land application of wastewater. Cascade is staffed with talented geologists, soil scientists, environmental technicians and civil, environmental and agricultural engineers. By combining Valley center pivot or linear move machines with wastewater application equipment, many scenarios for wastewater management world wide can be improved.

Divestitures by Valmont include the 1989 sale of the Gate City Steel service center business and the 1993 exit of the Gate City Steel steel reinforcing bar business; the 1993 sale of its investment in InaCom Corp; the sale in 1994 of the assets of Good-All Electric, Inc., a Colorado producer of cathodic protection rectifiers; and, in early 1997, the sale of Valmont Electric.