Amphenol Corp. announced that it is acquiring Eden Prairie-based sensor manufacturer MTS Systems Corp. in a deal valued at $1.7 billion.

A press release said that the deal was approved by the boards of both companies. With $895 million in revenue last year, MTS is the 30th largest public company in Minnesota, according to Business Journal research. Amphenol had 2019 sales of $8.2 billion.

MTS is organized into two business segments: sensors, and test and simulation. Amphenol said the acquisition will give it the industry’s broadest range of sensors and sensor-based products, while the test and simulation segment has near and long-term potential.

Italy’s Danieli has received an order from Russian steelmaker AO Severstal for a new rolling mill for special steels to be installed at its plant in Cerepovec.

A press release said the new plant will produce 5.5 to 32-mm wire rod and coiled bars for engineering and automotive industries, and 8 to 16-mm quenched rebar for construction purposes. Danieli will provide all the technological equipment, automation and advisory services. A Danieli Centro Combustion walking beam reheating furnace will bring to rolling temperature 12-m-long, 150-mm square-billets, at a pace of 170 tph. A single-strand high-speed roughing mill made of horizontal and vertical housingless stands will feed two independent wire rod lines and a garret coiler to produce the bigger diameters. Startup is planned for by the end of 2022.

Bekaert and Almasa recently agreed to merge Proalco SAS, a Bekaert subsidiary, with the steel wire activities of Almasa SA, both of which are located in Colombia.

A press release said that the partnership intends to create value by combining expertise and resources in offering existing and new steel wire products and solutions to the market. With manufacturing activities in the center and on the Atlantic coast of Colombia, the merger will promote employment, enable export opportunities and facilitate the supply of upholstery steel wire for Bekaert’s recently established mattress spring systems joint venture, Agro-Bekaert Colombia SAS, located in Malambo, Atlantico.

Bekaert Ideal Holding (in which Bekaert holds 80% of the shares) and Almasa SA would each hold 50% in Proalco SAS after the merger. SAS generated €65 million in revenue in 2019.

Oden Technologies and Rockwell Automation announced that they have entered a partnership that will benefit both companies.

“This relationship will empower manufacturers to make real-time, data-driven decisions like never before, and truly thrive in an ever-evolving market scenario,” a press release said. “By combining Rockwell’s comprehensive suite of industrial automation services and Oden’s turnkey, AI-powered technology, we’re excited to offer end-to-end solutions to help clients continuously stay agile, boost profits, cut costs and reduce scrap. Oden has found common ground in both Rockwell’s incredible domain expertise and in our values, work ethic, and joint vision of an agile and future-ready manufacturing industry.”

The news follows another partnership deal entered into by Oden Technologies last September with Litmus, “the Intelligent Edge Computing company.” A press release said that together, the two companies “offer a turnkey solution for Smart Manufacturing including out-of-the-box data acquisition from any machine, advanced analytics and machine learning to drive greater production efficiency.”

Litmus Edge provides the data intelligence platform to quickly collect, normalize and analyze high volumes of live data from industrial assets and make them available to OT and IT systems via edge-to-enterprise integration. Oden provides big data compute engine and machine learning, real-time and predictive process metrics.

The U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) announced that it has made an affirmative preliminary determination in the countervailing duty (CVD) investigation of standard steel welded wire mesh from Mexico.

A press release said that exporters/producers from Mexico will receive countervailable subsidies at rates ranging from 1.02 to 102.09%. DoC will instruct U.S. Customs and Border Protection to collect cash deposits from importers of standard steel welded wire mesh from Mexico based on the preliminary rates noted above. In 2019, imports of standard steel welded wire mesh from Mexico were valued at approximately $46.7 million.

The petitioners were Insteel Industries Inc., Mid-South Wire Company, National Wire LLC, Oklahoma Steel & Wire Co. and Wire Mesh Corp.

DoC is scheduled to announce its final determination in this case on or about Feb. 11, 2021. If it makes an affirmative final determination, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) will make its final injury determination on or about March 29, 2021.