Attorney General Marc Dann is looking into antitrust concerns that have arisen based on a Hong Kong company’s planned purchase of the North Canton-based Hoover vacuum-cleaner company from Whirlpool.
The West Virginia attorney general’s office is investigating whether Techtronic Industries Co. Ltd. legally can purchase Hoover, which employs about 1,000 workers.
Techtronic manufactures the Dirt Devil, Regina, Royal and Vax brands of floor cleaners.
Dann’s office has not yet filed an antitrust claim, said Edgar Simpson, the attorney general’s administration and policy chief.
“The idea is to get some information to see if there’s an impact on the competitive marketplace,” Simpson said. “We have a feeling that we need to look at this pretty quickly. It is an Ohio company, and we feel that we have standing to do this.”
The Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Justice Department also have regulatory oversight of the acquisition, but Simpson said Dann thinks that his office also should look at the deal.
In a news release on December 7th announcing the $107 million purchase of Hoover, Techtronic said the deal is scheduled to close by the end of the summer but could be final as sometime in March.
Techtronic has not announced whether it plans to keep Hoover’s manufacturing jobs in the US.
The purchase has raised concerns that the company may well move the manufacturing operations to an Asian country with lower labor costs.
Hoover’s roots go back to 1875, when the family settled in North Canton, Ohio. The Hoover company began manufacturing vacuum cleaners in 1908.
Hoover is a division of Whirlpool Corp. which they aquired as a part of the recent purchase of Maytag.
Whirlpool have offered no comment as yet.
