Mueller Water Products Inc's Business Segments

Mueller Water Products, Inc. is a Delaware corporation that was incorporated on September 22, 2005 under the name Mueller Holding Company, Inc. It is the surviving corporation of the merger of Mueller Water Products, LLC and Mueller Water Products Co-Issuer, Inc. with and into Mueller Holding Company, Inc. on February 2, 2006, when we changed our name to Mueller Water Products, Inc. On June 1, 2006, we completed an initial public offering of 28,750,000 shares of Series A common stock.

Mueller Co.
Mueller Co.’s water distribution products are manufactured to meet or exceed American Water Works Association (“AWWA”) Standards and, where applicable, certified to NSF/ANSI Standard 61 for potable water conveyance. In addition, Underwriters Laboratory (“UL”) and FM Approvals (“FM”) have approved many of these products. These products are typically specified by a water utility for use in its system.

Water and Gas Valves and Related Products. Mueller Co. manufactures valves for water and gas systems, including iron gate, butterfly, tapping, check, knife, plug and ball valves, and sells these products under a variety of brand names, including Mueller and U.S. Pipe Valve and Hydrant. These valve products are used to control transmission of potable water, non-potable water or gas. Water valve products typically range in size from ¾ inch to 36 inches in diameter. Mueller Co. also manufactures significantly larger valves as custom order work through its Henry Pratt business unit. Most of these valves are used in water transmission or distribution, water treatment facilities or industrial applications.

Mueller Co. also produces small valves, meter bars and line stopper fittings for use in gas systems, as well as machines and tools for tapping, drilling, extracting, installing and stopping-off, which are designed to work with its water and gas fittings and valves as an integrated system.

Fire Hydrants. Mueller Co. manufactures dry-barrel and wet-barrel fire hydrants.
These fire hydrants consist of an upper barrel and nozzle section and a lower barrel and valve section that connects to a water main. In dry-barrel hydrants, the valve connecting the barrel of the hydrant to the water main is located below ground at or below the frost line, which keeps the upper barrel dry. Mueller Co. sells dry-barrel fire hydrants under the Mueller and U.S. Pipe Valve and Hydrant brand names in the United States and the Canada Valve brand name in Canada. Mueller Co. also makes wet-barrel hydrants, where the valves are located in the hydrant nozzles and the barrel contains water at all times. Wet-barrel hydrants are made for warm weather climates, such as in California and Hawaii, and are sold under the Jones brand name.

Most municipalities have approved a limited number of fire hydrant brands for installation within their systems due to their desire to use the same tools and operating instructions across their systems and to minimize inventories of spare parts. We believe Mueller Co.’s large installed base of fire hydrants throughout the United States and Canada, reputation for superior quality and performance and incumbent specification positions have contributed to the leading market positions of its fire hydrants. This large installed base also leads to recurring sales of replacement hydrants and hydrant parts.

Other Products and Services. Mueller Co. also sells pipe repair products, such as clamps and couplings used to repair leaks, under the Mueller and Jones brand names.

Anvil
Anvil products include a variety of fittings, couplings, hangers, valves and related piping component system products for use in non-residential construction (including HVAC and fire protection applications), industrial, power and oil & gas end markets.

The majority of Anvil’s products are not specified by an architect or an engineer, but are required to be manufactured to industry specifications, which may include material composition, tensile strength and various other requirements. Many products carry the UL, FM or other approval rating.
Fittings and Couplings. Pipe fittings and couplings join pieces of pipe together. Anvil manufactures five primary categories of pipe fittings and couplings:

Cast Iron Fittings. Cast iron is an economical threaded-fitting material and is the standard used in the United States for low pressure applications, such as sprinkler systems and other fire protection systems. We believe the substantial majority of Anvil’s cast iron products are used in the fire protection industry, with the remainder used in steam and other HVAC applications.

Malleable Iron Fittings and Unions. Malleable iron is cast iron that is heat-treated to make it stronger, allowing a thinner wall and a lighter product. Threaded malleable iron products are used primarily to join pipe in oil & gas and industrial applications.

Grooved Fittings, Couplings and Valves. Grooved ductile iron products, which use a threadless pipe-joining method that does not require welding, are used in all of Anvil’s end markets.

Threaded Steel Pipe Couplings. Threaded steel pipe couplings are used by plumbing and electrical end users to join pipe and conduit and by pipe mills as threaded-end protectors.

Nipples. Pipe nipples are used to expand or compress the flow between pipes of different diameters. Anvil’s steel pipe nipple product line is a complementary product offering that is packaged with cast iron fittings for fire protection products, malleable iron fittings for industrial applications and its forged steel products for oil & gas and chemical applications. Pipe nipples are also general plumbing items.
Hangers. Anvil manufactures a broad array of pipe hangers and supports. Standard pipe hangers and supports are used in fire protection sprinkler systems and HVAC applications where the objective is to provide rigid support from the building structure. Special order, or engineered, pipe supports are used in power and chemical plants to support piping systems that must withstand thermal, dynamic or seismic movement.

Other Products. Anvil distributes other products, including forged steel pipe fittings, hammer unions, bull plugs and swage nipples used to connect pipe in oil & gas applications. Anvil also sells pipe fabrication machines directly to customers in the fire protection industry.

Mueller Technologies
Mueller Technologies is comprised of companies that provide innovative solutions, products and services that actively diagnose, monitor and control the delivery of water.
Water Metering Products and Systems. Mueller Systems manufactures and sources a variety of water technology products under the Mueller Systems and Hersey brand names that are designed to help water providers accurately measure and control water usage. Mueller Systems offers a complete line of residential, fire line and commercial metering solutions. Residential and commercial water meters are generally classified as either manually read meters or remotely read meters via radio technology. A manually read meter consists of a water meter and a register that gives a visual meter reading display. Meters equipped with radio transmitters (endpoints) use encoder registers to convert the measurement data from the meter (mechanical or static) into an encrypted digital format which is then transmitted via radio frequency to a receiver that collects and formats the data appropriately for water utility billing systems. These remotely read, or mobile, systems are either automatic meter reading (“AMR”) systems, where equipment for meter reading purposes, including a radio receiver, computer and reading software, collects the data from utilities’ meters; or fixed network advanced metering infrastructure (“AMI”) systems, where data is gathered utilizing a network of permanent data collectors or gateway receivers that are always active or listening for the radio transmission from the utilities’ meters. AMI systems eliminate the need for utility personnel to travel through service territories to collect meter reading data. These systems provide the utilities with more frequent and diverse data at specified intervals from the utilities’ meters. Mueller Systems sells both AMR and AMI systems and related products. Mueller Systems’ remote disconnect water meter enables the water flow to be stopped and started remotely via handheld devices or from a central operating facility.