Ingram Sells Dredging Subsidiary To Pine Bluff Sand & Gravel

Ingram Industries Inc. of Nashville Tennessee and Pine Bluff Sand and Gravel Co. of Pine Bluff Arkansas announced July 13 that they have agreed for Ingram to sell its Ingram Materials LLC subsidiary to Pine Bluff.

Ingram Materials is a prime producer of fine aggregate used by the construction industry for concrete asphalt and masonry projects in middle Tennessee western Kentucky and northern Alabama. Ingram Materials operates three sand dredges on the Ohio River in Paducah Kentucky. It has distribution facilities in Nashville Clarksville and New Johnsonville Tennessee; Paducah; and Decatur and Florence Alabama.

Pine Bluff is owned and operated by the McGeorge family. Besides its core focus of dredging for sand and aggregate its businesses include providing crushed stone hot-mix asphalt and ready-mix concrete; marine construction; barge transportation; bank stabilization; building rock structures; and providing marsh restoration and protection.

The Ingram Materials business was first established in 1927 as the Ohio River Sand Company. The company eventually became the Cumberland River Sand and Gravel Company which was bought under that name by the Ingram family in 1962 and renamed Ingram Materials. The business included a large sand yard on the east bank of the Cumberland River visible from downtown Nashville. To make room for a new football stadium built for the Tennessee Titans Ingram Materials relocated that operation to its current Nashville location in 1997.

Orrin Ingram president and chief executive officer of Ingram Industries Inc. noted that the sale of Ingram Materials is “an opportunity to align with an industry leader more focused on the production and sale of sand and aggregate.

“Pine Bluff and Ingram are both family-owned companies with cultures that place great value on associate satisfaction and safe operations so it means a lot that our Ingram Materials associates will become part of a company that shares our values” Ingram said.

Brian McGeorge chief operating officer and vice president of Pine Bluff said Pine Bluff is “excited by the opportunity to continue the hard work done by Ingram over the years to build a valuable well-run company which shares a similar culture as Pine Bluff.”

Pine Bluff’s original business in 1913 was sand and gravel dredging on the Arkansas River. “Sand dredging continues to be a major part of our company. We are extremely excited to acquire a company in a line of business we know very well with a significant presence in very attractive markets” McGeorge said.

“Pine Bluff’s leadership position in the sand and aggregate industry should allow us to combine the strengths of Ingram Materials and Pine Bluff” he said. “Ingram has many customers and partner-distributors and Pine Bluff looks forward to continuing and expanding those relationships.”

McGeorge said Pine Bluff intends to hire all of the existing Ingram Materials associates and to continue operations substantially unchanged. Ingram Materials will operate under the name Pine Bluff Materials Company.

As part of this transaction Pine Bluff and Ingram Barge Company will enter into a long-term towing agreement under which Ingram Barge and Pine Bluff will tow Pine Bluff’s sand and gravel barges on the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers.

The sale will not affect operations or employment at any other Ingram companies or divisions.