ATLANTA — Newell Rubbermaid, manufacturer and distributor of consumer and commercial products including home organization and storage, reported increased 3Q net sales of $1.55 billion, an increase of 5.8 percent over the previous year.

The Home and Family division, which includes Rubbermaid Consumer businesses — storage products and custom organizing systems — reported 3Q net sales of $626.7 million, up 2.9 percent compared to 3Q 2010.

“Our third quarter results represent a solid step forward,” said Michael Polk, President and CEO, in a statement. “Core sales growth, operating income margin improvement and operating cash flow came in as expected and improved meaningfully versus our first half and year ago results. These good numbers in the context of a really tough macro environment and represent progress towards our goal of delivering consistent predictable results and sustainable profitable growth.”

Newell Rubbermaid recently introduced a new initiative, Project Renewal, which will restructure the global company into two business groups instead of three and nine business units instead of 13. The new operating groups, Newell Consumer and Newell Professional, will launch in January 2012. Also, Newell will consolidate two manufacturing facilities and two distribution centers as part of this project to streamline business operations.

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