Township, Stark County, Ohio, and the facility was sold to a church. Like many manufacturing companies in the United States, Hoover is experiencing pressures as consumers demand lower-priced goods. Hoover has operations in Mexico, where operating costs are lower than in the United States. After Maytag was acquired by Whirlpool in 2006, that firm reached an agreement to sell Hoover to Hong Kong-based firm Techtronic Industries. TTI announced its intention to close the original plant in North Canton in September 2007. Hoover in Australia Since 1954, the Hoover factory at Meadowbank had manufactured washing machines and other products. A subsidiary of the US company, Hoover Australia merged with Chicago Pacific in 1985 and Maytag in 1989. Hoover Australia had its own administration, sales and marketing, large maintenance and engineering departments, a service division, and a much larger production workforce. At that time, in the early 1990s, Hoover was making healthy profits, as a result of investment in new technology and machinery through the late 1980s, a big drive towards quality improvement, and a very flexible workforce. In 1994, Hoover Australia was to be listed as a public company with a six-monthly operating profit of $8,850,000. That sparked a fight between Email Limited and Southcorp, two of Australia's largest white goods manufacturers for a commercial sale. Both companies were eager to strengthen their market share and further monopolize the whitegoods industry. In December 1994, Southcorp announced that it had bought Hoover Australia. In March 1996, Southcorp began a big rationalization, sacking workers at the Hoover factory involved in maintenance, stores, administration and supervision. Also in the year up to March 1996, there had been a large increase in Southcorp's share price. In April, 1999, Southcorp Appliances, including Hoover, Dishlex and Chef, was sold, meaning that Email had obtained a conservative 60 percent share of the Australian whitegoods market. After the Southcorp takeover, a culture of fear was introduced, based on a concerted campaign to strip all the indirect labor from the workforce, and a myth that the factory was inefficient and unproductive. Every month it was reported the factory was losing $1 million or more. Morale at the factory went into a downward spiral. That was followed by decisions to stop production of barrel and upright vacuum cleaners, followed by front-loading washing machines. They were replaced with imported products. Plastic molding production was contracted out. The factory was being stripped of