I had completely forgot about this, but in the late 1980's there were voluntary restrictions on the importation of Japanese machine tools into the USA. There was a specific "pie" of total numbers and the big boys like Mori Seiki, Miyano and Mazak got most of this pie, while the little guys, like Kiwa were left with a pretty small slice.
To get around this, Kiwa opened a plant in Singapore and conjured up another name...Excel ! Majority of the parts were still made in Japan at Kiwa and the Singapore plant mostly did assembly of the machines.
Excel America was near Chicago and ceased to be about 2004 due to combination of management decisions and recession of 2001-2003. Marathon in TX ended up with most of their parts inventory but parts are also available from Kiwa...you just have to wait a while to get them.
So, that's the scoop and explains somewhat why they are, in spite of rather mundane appearance, pretty good machines, as they are for all practical purposes, Japanese machines.
Kiwa is still in Japan, but mostly manufacturing HMC's now.
Re the export restrictions, I wonder if that was the main reason Okuma opened a plant near Charlotte, NC about that time ? I toured that plant and recall they were mostly doing assembly also.