IRVING, Texas, March 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Hanson Pipe & Precast today announced the purchase of all outstanding shares of Price Brothers Company, a Dayton , Ohio - based manufacturer of concrete pressure pipe. Acquisition of the Price Brothers Company represents a significant product line and capacity expansion for Hanson, including five facilities in Bakewell, Tenn.; Hattiesburg, Miss.; Palatka, Fla.; South Beloit, Ill.; and a subsidiary, PriceBrothers (U.K.) Ltd., which operates in Weybridge, England. Concrete pressure pipe is used by a majority of medium to large cities in the United States for potable and wastewater systems as well as for large industrial complexes and power plant cooling systems.

"This acquisition is instrumental in building our concrete pressure pipe presence and puts Hanson closer to our strategic vision for North America ,"said Clifford Hahne , Hanson's South Central region president.

More than 500 Price Brothers employees will become Hanson employees and will also have opportunities for further training and advancement. "PriceBrothers has some of the best trained, most knowledgeable people in the industry and we are very fortunate to have them join the Hanson family," said Hahne. "We plan on continuing Price Brothers prestigious reputation."

James S. Clift, Price Brothers president and CEO, will retire today and Hahne will assume the role of president of the company. "The combined operations of Price Brothers and Hanson will create one of the largest North American suppliers of products to the water transmission segment of the municipal and power markets. This is an ideal fit for Hanson and PriceBrothers," said Clift.

Harry S. Price founded Price Brothers Company as a construction company in1899. From the beginning, the company worked on such notable projects as Dayton , Ohio's Island Park Dam, producing pre-stressed concrete cylinder pipe and fittings for a power plant in Indonesia and in 1996, building more than43 miles of pipe for a pipeline in Virginia that now supplies 60 million gallons of water from Lake Gaston to the City of Virginia Beach per day. The salaried employees of the company bought Price Brothers Company from the founder's family in 1998.