February 25, 2006

significant number of transactions at these valuation levels unless meaningful synergies are available to buyers,” he says.Rising valuation multiples may also be forcing financial buyers with extensive experience in the industry to be more strategic in nature, CD& R’s Novak says. Over the past 10 years CD& R has bid for some of the top […]

Financial buyers have snatched up companies big and small with the goal of growing and later selling in hopes of a high return on investment. Here’s a look at two deals:WESCO Distribution (electrical)Who: Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, New YorkWhen: February 1994The Details: WESCO was the electrical products distribution unit of Westinghouse Electric. According to CD&

products. A 12-percent penalty applies if the competing vendor is a small business. Defense agencies add a 50-percent penalty to the foreign offer.The Buy American Act now only applies to procurements under roughly $175,000. The Trade Agreements Act, passed in 1979, applies to anything over that amount. The Trade Agreements Act requires federal agencies to

of terms, or no collection activities’the odds are that the dealings were in the ordinary course of business. 3. Official Unsecured Creditors’ Committees have new obligations to provide information to the creditors they represent. These are groups of creditors that work collectively to protect creditors’ interests. They are formed under the law and advised by

and profit was up 11 percent to $437.3 million. For the year, Motion Industries saw sales increase 11 percent to $2.8 billion. GPC sales in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, 2005, were up 7 percent to $2.41 billion, compared with $2.25 billion in the same period last year. Motion Industries increased sales by 9

U.S. machine tool consumption was up 8.4% to $3,080.61 compared with 2004. December machine tool consumption was up 30.8% to $311.03 million, according to The Association for Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors’ Association. This total is up 7.8% from the total of $288.54 million reported for December 2004.These numbers and all data

December 2005 sales of merchant wholesalers, except manufacturers’ sales branches and offices, after adjustment for seasonal variations and trading-day differences but not for price changes, were $314.9 billion, up 1.0 percent from the revised November level and were up 8.3 percent from the December 2004 level. The November preliminary estimate was virtually unchanged. December sales

Modern Distribution Management’s January Inflation Index, which measures a cross-section of industrial supplies, is up 0.78% over the previous month, and up 5.32% from January 2005. Summary of MDM Inflation Index for the past 12 months: January 2006 Index 260.2December 2005 Index 258.1November 2005 Index 256.1October 2005 Index 255.4September 2005 Index 254.3August 2005 Index 253.9July 2005 Index 253.0June