MOLINE, Ill. - Continuing its expansion into the lawn and landscape contractor market, Deere & Company announced today, Jan. 4, 2001, that it will acquire privately held McGinnis Farms Inc., a provider of products and services to landscape and irrigation professionals. Headquartered in Alpharetta, Ga., McGinnis Farms had sales of $150 million in 2000.
The acquisition enables Deere to compete for a larger share of the dollars spent by landscape and irrigation professionals. The acquisition announcement comes just three weeks after the Dec. 18, 2000, announcement that Deere acquired Great Dane, a manufacturer of commercial mowing equipment targeted to the professional landscape contractor market. (For more information about the Great Dane acquisition click here: John Deere Acquires Great Dane Power Equipment Company.)
“Our strategy in all markets is to create a more complete range of solutions for John Deere customers, therefore offering the potential for growth in our business results,” said Robert Lane, chairman and CEO of Deere & Company. “This acquisition helps broaden our businesses while maintaining strong synergies between new opportunities and our core equipment and credit businesses.”
“Our customers benefit as we further extend our reach to landscape and irrigation professionals in the $100 billion market known as the Green Industry,” said John Jenkins, president of John Deere's Worldwide Commercial and Consumer Equipment Division.
“Large landscape-service providers want total solutions,” Jenkins said. “John Deere, supported by the McGinnis acquisition and the recently announced purchase of Great Dane Power Equipment, will continue to build a more comprehensive suite of products, equipment, services and financing solutions for the green-industry professional.”
Through service centers in 10 U.S. states, McGinnis supplies a full line of nursery stock, landscape supplies and irrigation products.
FdG Associates, a New York-based investment firm, and a group of McGinnis managers are the current McGinnis owners selling the company to John Deere.