AMF International
UK division of AMF Inc
1959 company established to serve the new UK market for ten-pin bowling[1]
1960 Formed a JV company with Henry Simon to make flour milling and handling machinery. A research laboratory was under construction near London, and a factory to make bowling alley equipment at Whitstable[2]
1965 AMF International was making tobacco machinery at Andover (AMF Legg) and Radcliffe-on-Trent (AMF Hamblin) and filter and evaporators at Reading[3]
1967 AMF International acquired part of the Shorts Brothers and Harland plant in Belfast to make pressure vessels for LPG storage[4]
1968 AMF International had British subsidiaries [5]:
- AMF Beaird-Belfast made gas equipment
- Manufacturing bowling equipment at Whitstable
- AMF Legg making tobacco machinery at Andover
- Making electrical products at Oxford
- Making Industrial and Food Machinery
- Making Recreational equipment
1970 Acquired Venner; the US parent also made time switches[6]
1970 Cuno Filter Division made filtration equipment at Reading[7]
1985 Parent company AMF was acquired through hostile takeover by Minstar Inc., a Minneapolis-based holding company, which then sold off various divisions.[8]
Management buyout of some parts of the company formed GBE International
1992 AMF International was put into liquidation