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Breaking news in Wholesale Distribution
Platinum Equity, Los Angeles, CA, has acquired the wire harness and electrical distribution business of Alcoa, Pittsburgh, PA. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The sale includes operations in 13 countries and involves approximately 17,500 employees.
The wire harness and electrical distribution business was the largest piece of Alcoa's Electrical and Electronic Solutions division, and its customers include major domestic and international automotive original equipment manufacturers and tier-one suppliers.
Plans for naming the business and other details of the transition will be announced over the coming weeks and months. ...
My bank was recently acquired, out of collapse, by one of the largest banks in the country. The transition from one to the other was going pretty smoothly, and I hadn't noticed any changes - for the most part - in how they did business with me. Until now.
I received a letter last week telling me that I had gone beyond the limited transactions" my account allowed online and via check (three!), and that I had been charged an over-activity fee for this transgression. I am getting married this month, so I have been writing more than the usual number of checks and conducting more than the usual number of online transactions. Still, this has never been an issue before. Clearly in the merger of the two banks, my free checking account had been downgraded, so to speak, to a category that had ...
Canadian industries continued to reduce their rate of capacity utilization in the first quarter of 2009, operating at 69.3% of production capacity, down 5.6 percentage points from the previous quarter. It was the first time that industrial capacity use fell below the 70% level since the start of the data series in 1987.
In the first quarter, durable goods industries, especially the transportation equipment industry, the construction sector, and the mining sector (excluding oil and gas extraction), were the main contributors to the overall decline. Weakened global and domestic demand for manufactured goods continued to drive down capacity utilization rates. Of the 21 major industries in the manufacturing group, 18 registered lower rates.
As it did in the fourth quarter of 2008, the ...
Both U.S. and Canadian manufacturers experienced a drop in sales in April 2009 according to sales data released by the Power Transmission Distributors Association. Confidence in the market (as measured on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being most optimistic) remained the same this month, holding a current negative position between 4.6 and 4.9.
U.S. manufacturers' sales were down 11.0% in April 2009 when compared to March 2009. Sales in April 2009 fell 29.8% compared to the same period last year. Orders in April 2009 increased by 2.2% over March 2009 sales, the first positive performance since October 2008.
Canadian manufacturers' sales were down 3.0% compared to March 2009. Sales were down 32.6% when compared to the same period last year.
Sales between March 2009 and April 2009 in ...
With today's economic environment and turbulent times, it is no surprise that many companies have had to reshape their business as executives scramble to keep their companies afloat. Business leaders are challenged to find a balance between current finances and long-term strategy.
These business decisions also require a close look at the deployment of human resources, including difficult decisions regarding layoffs, restructuring compensation programs and pay practices, reductions in benefits, ...
First: The recent financial meltdown did not cause the downfall of the Big Three. The financial crisis precipitated what arguably was more than two decades in the making. Remember the ghost of Ignacio Lopez, GM's purchasing chief in the 1990s?
In the 20-plus years I have been covering industrial distribution channels, the supply-chain relationship between these manufacturers and their ...
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has granted early termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 related to the joint venture.
When it closes, the deal will nearly double Watsco's sales. Watsco is a distributor of air conditioning, heating and refrigeration equipment, parts and supplies in the HVAC/R industry, operating 412 locations serving 40,000 customers in 34 states.
Watsco and Carrier's ...
Still, the CEO of Ingram Micro - Greg Spierkel - told Reuters that "green-shoot messages" are premature. He went so far as to say that the industry is in the worst stages, and if it has not yet hit bottom, it will in the coming months. Avnet's CEO had similar sentiments.
The article did say that distributors expect to benefit from falling ...
