On The Block

Hawk Corp.’s board of directors has started to look at strategic alternatives, and Harris Williams & Co. was brought in to serve as financial adviser. The board will consider the sale of the Cleveland, Ohio-based supplier of friction materials used in brakes, clutches and transmissions. The company has about 1,200 employees at two manufacturing, research and other offices in six countries. The company has no timetable for its evaluation of options. For the first quarter, profit more than doubled to $3.8 million from $1.6 million and sales increased to $53.4 million from $44.3 million a year earlier.

Albany, Ore.-based Synthetech Inc. (OTCBB: NZYM) has hired Brocair Partners LLC to conduct a review of strategic alternatives. Options range from the continued execution of the operating plan for the developer and maker of amino acids, the sale or acquisition of assets or businesses, and partnering or other collaboration agreements or arrangements. Synthetech won’t discuss the review unless and until the evaluation is completed or a definitive agreement is reached.

NaiKun Wind Energy Group Inc.’s board has hired Cormark Securities Inc. to provide advice on a review of strategic alternatives that could maximize shareholder value. (Naikun said Cormark Securities is familiar with its assets and operations, after leading a $35 million equity financing in 2007.) NaiKun Wind Energy expects to complete the process during the summer. The Vancouver, Canada-based renewable energy concern plans to examine options, such as business combinations, joint venture opportunities, the sale of assets and continued work on an offshore wind energy project.

Fortune Minerals Ltd. has hired Deloitte & Touche Corporate Finance Canada Inc. to serve as financial adviser to identify potential partners and to examine possible transactions for one of its properties, the Mount Klappan anthracite metallurgical coal project. The Canadian natural resource company said the project, which includes the Lost Fox, Hobbit-Broatch, Summit and Nass deposit areas, was assessed in a positive definitive feasibility study by Marston & Marston Inc. back in 2008.