1920: Salesman’s trouble finding fasteners plus the developing automobile industry led to founding of H. Paulin & Co.
FEATURE
It was announced in December that The Hillman Companies Inc. will acquire H. Paulin & Co. Ltd. for CDN $103 million (US$104.5m) (see GlobalFastenerNews.com, December 18, 2012). The transaction is expected to close this quarter.
Third generation president Richard Paulin provided company history to GlobalFastenerNews.com:
H. Paulin & Co. was founded by Harry Paulin in 1920 in Toronto, Canada. He had worked in a hardware store and recognized the difficulty in locating fasteners for customers. In addition, the automobile industry was developing, creating a growing demand for automotive fasteners.
Paulin and his wife, Anna Paulin, opened the company with the idea of providing the “not readily available” fasteners.
By 1925, he published the first comprehensive fastener catalogue with automotive fasteners in Canada. The catalogue included automotive wedge clamps, rim bolts and nuts, battery parts, wing nuts, flat and lockwashers, hex head cap screws and hex nuts.
The Paulin Auto Parts Co. was created to market its PAPCO brand. Today PAPCO fasteners and automotive hardware dominate the Canadian automotive aftermarket.
In the late 1920’s the company began manufacturing stamped components, including battery clamps, washers and later the Easy-Spot line of stamped weld nuts.
Harry Paulin’s two sons, Arthur Paulin and Stanley Paulin, entered the business full time after World War II, and they expanded both the manufacturing and distribution. During the 1950’s through the 1970’s the company added cold heading, screw machine, nut forming and chemical adhesive processing to the original stamping operations.
As manufacturing grew, H.Paulin added packaging and merchandising for its three key markets: automotive aftermarket, industrial distributors and retail hardware.
Under different brand names like Worksavers, Pic-a Pac, Pro-tip, Dominion and others, Paulin and its five divisions expanded across Canada. Distribution centers were opened in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Moncton. In the U.S., H. Paulin opened distribution centers in Cleveland and Flint, Michigan.
Soon the distribution segment was stocking more than 75,000 standard and custom fasteners, fittings and hard-to-find components.
H. Paulin today is led by Harry Paulin’s grandson, Richard Paulin. Richard’s son, David Paulin, joined the company three years ago and thus became the fourth generation in the business.
H. Paulin has over 600 employees.
After the closing of the sale, the company will operate as H. Paulin, a division of Hillman-Canada. As Paulin’s business includes products and markets Hillman has not been in, Hillman is evaluating opportunities to grow the business in the U.S.
FIN Subscribers can read the Hillman/Paulin acquisition story: Click Here.
For the history of dozens of fastener companies, click on Fastener History.
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