# Weir Pumps Takeover.



## HENNEGANOL

Quote from the Daily Mail, Saturday February 17th, 2007

_"Four hundred jobs are on the block in Glasgow as a result of the proposed £48m sale of Weir Group's pumps division to foreign raider, Sulzer of Switzerland.

The redundancies will account for two thirds of the 596-strong workforce at the unit's base in Cathcart, Glasgow, where it has been producing industrial pumps for the oil, gas and power markets since 1896."_

Another company with a long association with the shipping industry, who's name will no doubt be just a memory in due course. At a guess I would say that just about every steam ship built in a UK shipyard had equipment of some sort manufactured by Weirs.

How many of us engineers have cussed the Weir Simplex feed pump or boiler oil pump. When they worked, they worked well, but when they started to wear they would become a pain and no amount of lapping or shimming could prevent them from stopping.


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## jazz606

It's not just the jobs. It is the loss expertise and opportunity. We can't have the whole country stacking shelves. 

A lot of marine stuff seems to be Swiss owned these days - on paper anyway.


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## neil maclachlan

*Weirs Pumps*

Hi Old Shipmates,
Yes what happened to Weir's Pumps,almost every ship I sailed on had Weirs Equipment on board or Drysdales Pumps. What about the Weirs closed feed systems.. Whats happen to Drysdales ,Weirs, Cochrans Boilers etc, Allens Generators and Sunderland Forge. It seems the world has gone topsy turvy those last few years. How about Hasties steering gear,once the best in the world. All thats left are nostalgic memories.
Thanks for the memories.
Neil Maclachlan.


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## KIWI

Another among those names was the Chadburn bridge to engine room telegraph.Aboard a French ship once was amazed to hear crew members refer to it as Le Chadburn & it wasn't of that make.Similar I guess to pipe wrenches being referred to as Stillsons,shifting spanners as Crescents & so on. Kiwi


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## Bill Lambert

I believe Sulzer Bros where bought out some years ago by the Finns. OEM Sulzer parts are now as rare as rocking horse manure.


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## Doug Shaw

Bill, it was the other way round. In 2000, Sulzer Pumps, the largest of the five remaining Sulzer divisions, acquired Ahlstrom Pumps, a Finnish company. The takeover of Weirs is in line with Sulzer's expansion plans for its pump division. After radical restructuring through the eighties and nineties, the remaining Sulzer divisions are Sulzer Metco, Sulzer Turbomachinery Services, _Sulzer Pumps_, Sulzer Chemtech and Sulzer Hexis.

Sulzer Pump subsidiaries include Johnston Pumps, PACO Pumps, Crown Pumps and Sulzer Process Pumps US Inc.

Regards
Doug


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## billyboy

Ah the trusty wier pumps. when the became and worn and prone to stopping, a skillful tap with a spanner near the top would soon have it pumping again. did you there was a steam powered compressor pump made by westinghouse which was used on the railway engines on the southern region. it had the same problem of stopping when it was worn. once again the skilful tap with the spanner had it thumping away again.


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## raybnz

Ahhh Memories. Lying in bed as night aboard and listening to the regular moan from the feed pump. Awaking in the middle of the night and that moan not to be heard. Down onto the plates to find the Donkey man beating the crap out of the shuttle valve casing with his wheel key.

I'm yet to find a Weirs feed pump without those tell tale marks on the shuttle valve casing. Even the Weirs pumps on the W C Daldy have the trademark knocks but at least now I can now coax them back into life even though they may stop again when I turn my back.


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## Doug Shaw

Dinky little fuel valve cooling pump was located by the desk on which the engineers wrote the log. Only way to ensure it wouldn't stop at regular intervals was to place a boiled egg and a *** on its casing at the start of the watch.

C/E enters the engine room and spotting the boiled egg and ***, enquires none too politely what they are doing on the pump casing. On being told, his face takes on a look of thunder. He grabs the offending objects and with a complete lack of ceremony is about to chuck them into the bin. On cue, the pump gives a wheeze and stops. C/E is dumbfounded.

Tentatively, he replaces the aforementioned items. Pumps gives another wheeze and starts again, as if by magic.

C/E glares at 4/E trying to work out how 4/E performed the feat, but being unable to do so, yells, "Don't let me catch you putting these bloody things there again!" C/E exits the engine room.

4/E hasn't a clue what actually happened. He couldn't have made it happen if he'd tried. It was just one of those things—but then, it _was_ a Weirs pump!

(Promise you—this really did happen.)

Regards
Doug


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## jimmys

I live near the Weir pumps main factory in Cathcart in Glasgow. It used to employ 3000 workers it is now under 900.
The factory is under pressure it is in a residential area and the site has a high value for yuppie flats.
Before this proposed sale there was talk of a move to an outer brown field site but I would not be surprised if it is now all taken out of the UK.
The Drysdale Pump business was taken over by Weirs and so to was Harland Pumps along with others.

regards
jimmys


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## fahrwud

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhh!" "Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhh!" 
The noise is either a weir pump, or as we used to call it, "Chiefy's mating call"
For those of you desiring spousal incredulity, place one of these on your mantelpiece..............
http://www.prestonservices.co.uk/pumps.htm
Yes, Weir pumps on the antique shelf!
Dave


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## spongebob

Dig deep and there you would find a thousand stories about Weir Pumps.
I did not know that they were taken over by Sulzer, these two were the big centrifugal feed pump rivals in my times along with the German K.S.B company. 
Weir did take over the steam valve company Hopkinsons of Huddersfield a few years ago.

Bob


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## degsy

I think put a post in some time ago about Weir feed pumps having to put an airline on one to get the effing thing going, wheelkey beatings, . Was with one and damned near crying to get it going, donkey man comes up and says "Just a gentle tap here fiver does the job" clips the shuttle v/v chest with a brass dolly. Pump starts up running like a goodun, donkeyman walks off whistling, me left muttering under breath.(Cloud)


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## chadburn

neil maclachlan said:


> Hi Old Shipmates,
> Yes what happened to Weir's Pumps,almost every ship I sailed on had Weirs Equipment on board or Drysdales Pumps. What about the Weirs closed feed systems.. Whats happen to Drysdales ,Weirs, Cochrans Boilers etc, Allens Generators and Sunderland Forge. It seems the world has gone topsy turvy those last few years. How about Hasties steering gear,once the best in the world. All thats left are nostalgic memories.
> Thanks for the memories.
> Neil Maclachlan.


Could not agree with you more Neil, there can't have been many steam jobs built in the UK up till around 1965 that was sans this type of equipment.(Thumb)


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## eriskay

The proposed aquisition of Weir Pumps by Sulzer did not in fact go ahead. At the last minute, having spent some time at Weir's Cathcart facility, carrying out a due dilligence exercise (and generally familiarising themselves with all aspects of the Company who, along with KSB of Germany, had been their greatest competitor for over 100 years!) they pulled out without warning.

Now, with some significant inside knowledge of Weir Pumps, its products and business strategy, Sulzer returned from whence they came leaving WPL looking rather foolish - and without a Buyer. Not a happy situation for their Australian Chief Executive who had been busy flogging off any arm of the company that he considered insufficiently profitable, medium to high risk, or an amalgam of these undesirable characteristics. (My own company, who were specialised in the Deslaination and offshore Oil & Gas markets, came into that category and we were sold off to a large French water company)

Meantime, to everyone's surprise, a new Buyer came on the scene very quickly after the Sulzer pull-out. This was that great Scottish engineer, Jim McColl, who had started off a meteoric success story when he bought up 30% of the ailing Clyde Blowers company in the early 90s and rapidly turned that into a huge success story. Within no time at all, Clyde Blowers bought Weir Pumps and renamed the company 'Clyde Pumps incorporating Weir Pumps'.

Some eyebrows were raised at the time and many wondered whether Jim McColl was losing his Midas touch. As it happened, he had served his own time with G & J Weir and many thought it was sentiment and emotion over-ruling the brain. Anyone knowing the man would realise the error in such an assumption - there are few better business heads in Scotland than Jim McColl.

This took place in May 2007. In November 2008, a year ago, Clyde Pumps went a stage further and bought out Union Pumps of the USA, a long-established pumps manufacturer established in 1885. Along with Weir Pumps, established by James and George Weir in 1871, the new Company, now renamed ClydeUnion, had the benefit of some 260 years pumping technology, before taking into account the numerous other pumping companies snapped up over the years from the 1930s onwards.

The old facility in Cathcart, which had been up for redevelopment, remains extant and the last I heard was that the development plans, unlike those for our erstwhile shipyards and riversides, have been shelved. 

Weir as a name still remains, however, the Oil & Gas Division was expanded in scope and markets, and removed from the Weir Pumps sell-off. Other divisions were sold off by the Chief Executive who has just stepped down to return to Australia. 

Lord Smith of Kelvin and Lord Robertson of Port Ellen remain as Directors in the ashes of this once-great West of Scotland engineering company. As I still work for the French company who bought my old company from Weir, I cannot say too much, except to make the point that having served Weirs of Cathcart for over 38 years it was no longer the same company once Lord Weir retired and it fell into the clutches of the so-called professional managers, of which admittedly I was one .... : - (


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