Shugart Agrees to Acquisition That Could Double Revenues

In a deal that could double its revenues, Shugart Corp., an Irvine maker of flexible disk drives for computers, has agreed to acquire Kennedy Co., a subsidiary of Allegheny International Inc., for an undisclosed cash price.

The purchase of Kennedy, a Monrovia-based maker of computer tape-drive products, will complement privately owned Shugart’s business and add 600 workers to its current work force of 650, according to Steven J. Genuser, Shugart vice president. Genuser would not release annual revenue figures of the companies.

Shugart, which Genuser said has been “quite profitable” since being formed last year in a private buyout of a division of Xerox Corp., has expanded by acquiring divisions of large companies. Its purchases include the flexible disk divisions of Memorex Corp. and Control Data Corp., which it integrated into its core business of floppy-disk drives.

Disk drives are the devices in computers that record and store information. Tape drives, which Kennedy makes, are backup information-storage devices.