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The story
Joseph M. Bruening founded Applied Industrial Technologies, then called The Ohio Ball Bearing Company, in 1923. Over the next few decades, new branches opened and sales rose steadily.
The company's name was changed from The Ohio Ball Bearing Company to Bearings, Inc. in 1953 and was first publicly traded on the American Stock Exchange that same year. In 1997, the Company changed its name to Applied Industrial Technologies to more accurately reflect its diversified product lines, and is currently traded on the New York Stock Exchange with the symbol AIT.
From the 1950s through the early 1990s, the Company targeted U.S. expansion with small and mid-size acquisitions. In the mid-1990s, the Company increased the overall pace of acquisitions, expanding its fluid power operations in particular. Since 2000, Applied has also grown internationally with locations in Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
From Wikipedia’s article on Applied Industrial Technologies, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.6