Rexnord Corp. will receive a 5-year tax abatement to help the company consolidate two out-of-state industrial bearing manufacturing locations to its primary Indianapolis, Indiana facility.

Although it is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Rexnord's Indianapolis location serves as its Bearing Group headquarters and is home to its 527,000 square foot industrial bearing manufacturing facility.

Indianapolis currently employs approximately 270 people in the manufacturing operations, and Rexnord indicated moving the out-of-state production there will create 43 new positions.

Although the company did not specify the two out-of-state industrial bearing facilities are moving to Indianapolis, there are only two bearing manufacturing facilities outside of Indiana -- in Clinton, Tennessee, and Downers Grove, Illinois. Downers Grove also produces high-precision aerospace bearings.

Rexnord sought the abatement in order to help offset approximately $1.8 million in expenses related to moving equipment and inventory to Indianapolis.

The approval granted to Rexnord amounts to a phase-in of the higher taxes which will result from the company's additional Indianapolis investments.

Rexnord's bearing operations manufacture a wide array of mounted and unmounted industrial, automotive, aircraft and specialty bearings, under the Link-Belt, Rex, MB, Shafer, PSI, and other brands. A separate operation, W.M. Berg, specializes in manufacturing and distributing miniature precision mechanical components, including bearings.

Rexnord is wholly-owned by RBS Global, Inc., which is owned by Apollo Management, a 5251R9N7 private-equity firm. Apollo acquired Rexnord for $1.8 billion from Carlyle Group, another private equity investment firm, in 2006. In 2002, Carlyle had acquired Rexnord from its financially troubled parent company, UK's Invensys plc.
article: Apollo set to acquire Rexnord