Acuity Brands

Acuity Brands, Inc. is a lighting and building management firm headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with operations throughout North America and in Europe and Asia. It currently has about 13,000 employees and recorded net sales of $3.7 billion for fiscal year 2018. In terms of market share, Acuity Brands is the largest lighting manufacturer in North America. History The roots of Acuity Brands date back to 1919 when Isadore M. Weinstein founded the Atlanta Linen Supply company. Weinstein had previously been employed in the towel supply business in Cleveland, and after serving in World War I, he started his own business renting towels, uniforms, and linens. He opened several locations throughout the south, changing the name to the Southern Linen Service Corporation in 1920. The company went public in 1928 as National Linen Service Corporation and continued to grow, eventually expanding to markets in the southwest and west coast. By 1944, the company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Following World War II, Weinstein's son, Milton, had taken over the company. In the 1950s, National Linen faced an antitrust suit due to its dominance in the otherwise fragmented linens industry. The suit was settled in 1956, and in an effort to assuage future antitrust concerns, the company began to diversify. National Linen's first acquisition outside of linens and uniforms was Zep Manufacturing Company, an Atlanta-based chemical and janitorial supply manufacturer, in 1962. Zep became synonymous with NSI's chemical division, acquiring Selig Chemical Industries in 1968 and several smaller acquisitions throughout the 1970s and 1980s. To better reflect its new variety of business units, National Linen became National Service Industries (NSI) in 1964. Zep co-founder Erwin Zaban, who had stayed on following the company's acquisition and was also Weinstein's neighbor, took over NSI's operation in 1966. In 1969, NSI acquired Lithonia Lighting Inc., a light fixture manufacturer founded in Georgia in 1946, and established a lighting division. Along with the chemical division that grew out of the Zep acquisition, the lighting division that grew out of the Lithonia Lighting acquisition formed the foundation for what would eventually become Acuity Brands. NSI acquired several other lighting manufacturers over the next 30 years, the largest of which occurred in 1999, when Ohio-based Holophane Corporation, a large outdoor and industrial lighting manufacturer, was purchased.