Thermadyne announces consolidation of New Hampshire manufacturing operations

Thermadyne Holdings Corp. has announced that it is relocating the manufacturing operations of Thermal Dynamics, its wholly, owned subsidiary and manufacturer of plasma cutting and welding equipment located in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, to its other North American facilities. Engineering, technical services and returned goods functions and a small assembly operation will remain at the West Lebanon location.

Martin Quinn, Thermadyne's CEO, stated, "Consistent with our ongoing continuous improvement initiatives, we thoroughly evaluated the total cost structure, overall production capacity, and global footprint of the company, and concluded that this consolidation is critical to our ability to better serve our customers and grow our business profitably. We expect that the relocation of our plasma cutting and welding equipment manufacturing operations to our Denton, Texas, and Hermosillo, Mexico, facilities will further improve our responsiveness to customers and maximize the capacity and utilization of our equipment and other operating assets. We expect a seamless transition for our distributors and for our end user customers."

The Company expects to have substantially completed these activities by December 31, 2011. The consolidation is expected to impact approximately 100 employees.