Marmon Group history

The Marmon name was adopted for the group of companies in 1964 to connote excellence in innovation, engineering, and performance.

Sales grew quickly, and in 1965 Marmon topped $51.8 million in total revenues.

In 1966 Marmon merged with publicly held Fenestra Incorporated, a maker of architectural steel doors and leaf springs for trucks.

In 1968 Marmon acquired Triangle Auto Springs Company, a manufacturer of flat-leaf truck springs for the replacement market.

1969: Lowell Bearing Company is acquired.

Finally, in December of 1970, Marmon paid $6 million for Keystone Pipe and Supply Company, a nationwide supplier of pipes and tubes based in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Their youngest brother, Donald Pritzker, would later become the force behind Hyatt Hotels before dying suddenly at the age of 39 in 1972.

1973: Marmon begins acquisition of Cerro Corporation conglomerate.

In a March 27, 1975, interview with the Wall Street Journal J. Ira Harris, then a Chicago-based partner of Salomon Brothers, said that the Pritzkers' ability to work together "gives them the kind of flexibility that doesn't exist elsewhere at their level of operations.

With the 1976 acquisition of Cerro Corporation, Marmon’s revenues doubled to nearly $1 billion.

Completed in 1977, the acquisition of the organ manufacturer was neither as successful nor as canny as the Cerro acquisition had been.

In September 1980, Marmon announced the proposed acquisition of Illinois-based Trans Union Corporation for $688 million.

1981: The $1 billion conglomerate Trans Union Corporation is acquired.

A case in point is the Getz Corporation, a San Francisco-based Pacific trading company that grossed over $600 million in 1989.

In 1997, Marmon acquired B.G. Sulzle Inc., a family-run maker of surgical needles in North Syracuse, New York.

The group spent $500 million on acquisitions in 1999, buying medical-related companies OsteoMed and Bridport and power cable supplier Kerite.

The group made more than 20 acquisitions in 2000, at a cost of another $500 million, while two mining equipment businesses were sold off the next year.

In 2002, Robert Pritzker retired from Marmon after spending 48 years at the company's helm in its Chicago headquarters.

Marmon Group companies saw pre-tax earnings rise 32 percent in 2003, to $573 million.

2005: Trans Union credit bureau is spun off.