Quanex Corporation (Houston, Texas) announced that it signed an agreement with Maxco, Inc. to purchase the assets of Atmosphere Annealing, Inc. (Lansing, Mich.), a wholly owned subsidiary of Maxco. The acquisition is subject to governmental and Maxco shareholders'' approval. The deal is expected to close Feb. 1, 2007.

Atmosphere Annealing, Inc. (AAI) is a metal-treating company with four plants in the Midwest and 2006 sales of $46.6.million. AAI specializes in high volume, ferrous heat-treating services primarily for automotive power-train applications.