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Search resuls for: "Bob Tita"


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Large U.S. steelmakers are ramping up production of a hard-to-make, paper-thin steel to capture a fast-growing market for a material critical to powering electric vehicles. Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. and U.S. Steel Corp. are jockeying with a small group of foreign-based steelmakers that produce electrical steel, used to convert electricity into mechanical power for motors in products that include washing machines, air conditioners, power tools and more recently, electric vehicles.
Gérard Pélisson helped build one of the world’s largest hotel companies in Accor SA. Gérard Pélisson bet on an untested business idea for hotels in Europe and picked the right partner for it. Mr. Pélisson gave up a career as an executive at International Business Machines Corp. in the 1960s to start a hotel company with Paul Dubrule, who had taken notice of successful hotel chains like Holiday Inn while working in the U.S. Mr. Dubrule convinced Mr. Pélisson that similar hotels could work in France and elsewhere in Europe, too. Mr. Pélisson mostly focused on the financing for the project and Mr. Dubrule devised the marketing plans. They opened their first Novotel hotel in northern France four years later in 1967.
Photo: Andrea Morales for The Wall Street JournalCaterpillar plants in the southern U.S. like this engine remanufacturing facility in Corinth, Miss., aren’t unionized. Caterpillar Inc. said it has agreed to not close additional union-represented plants under a new tentative contract deal with the members of the United Auto Workers union. The moratorium on plant closings, outlined this past week, follows years of Caterpillar consolidating operations and moving production away from unionized work sites in the Midwest.
Reliance on imported aluminum from producers including Rusal has declined in recent years. U.S. aluminum companies said they supported the Biden administration’s move to impose steep tariffs on imported Russian aluminum, as analysts and executives predicted the new duties would have a minor effect on domestic aluminum costs. The White House on Friday imposed 200% tariffs on imported aluminum from Russia, as well as aluminum imports from elsewhere that include Russian aluminum, as part of a package of duties on Russian metals, minerals and chemicals worth about $2.8 billion. The tariff package coincided with the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Nikola’s Costs Rise Ahead of Hydrogen-Electric Truck Launch
  + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Bob Tita | ) www.wsj.com   time to read: 1 min
Nikola Corp. is eating up cash as it works to increase production of its zero-emissions trucks. Nikola Corp. reported rising expenses and declining revenue, cutting into the company’s cash reserves as it works to accelerate production of its zero-emissions trucks. Nikola said revenue for the three months ended Dec. 31 was $6.6 million, down from $24.2 million in the prior quarter. The Arizona-based company said it ended the quarter with a cash balance of $323 million, down from $403.8 million at the end of the prior quarter and $522.2 million at the end of 2021.
Chemical maker Chemours Co. said it would continue producing so-called forever chemicals, saying that the controversial substances can be made safely and are critical for semiconductors and electric vehicles. Chemours, one of the largest U.S. makers of fluorine-carbon polymers, said that it is expanding production of some varieties of the chemicals and defending their use. Sales for its fluoropolymer business unit were $1.6 billion in 2022, 16% higher than the prior year, the company reported last week.
Nikola plans to brand its hydrogen filling stations under the name ‘Hyla.’Nikola Corp. has started work on hydrogen plants, part of a fueling network the company intends to underpin its push to compete in the nascent zero-emissions truck market. The seven-year-old manufacturer has also signed up a handful of hydrogen producers that have agreed to supply hydrogen for Nikola vehicles in parts of the U.S. and Canada, as the company seeks to have enough fuel for about 7,500 heavy-duty trucks by 2026.
Veterans Suing Over 3M Earplugs Want Bankruptcy Case Tossed
  + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Bob Tita | ) www.wsj.com   time to read: 1 min
3M Co. has said that its military earplugs are safe if service members receive proper training on using them. Lawyers for veterans suing 3M Co. over its earplugs have asked a federal judge to dismiss the bankruptcy filing of a 3M subsidiary that would shield the industrial conglomerate from court trials. The motion for dismissal filed late Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Indiana followed a federal appeals court ruling this week that tossed out a chapter 11 filing by LTL Management LLC, a company created by Johnson & Johnson in 2021. J&J had transferred its talcum-powder-related liabilities to LTL, which then filed for bankruptcy, blocking plaintiffs from bringing additional lawsuits.
3M to Cut Jobs as Demand for Its Products Weakens
  + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( John Keilman | Bob Tita | ) www.wsj.com   time to read: 1 min
3M, the maker of Post-it Notes and Scotch tape, said sales fell 6% in the latest quarter. 3M Co. said it is cutting 2,500 manufacturing jobs as the company confronts difficult business conditions in its overseas markets and weakening consumer demand. The maker of Scotch tape, Post-it Notes and thousands of other industrial and consumer products said Tuesday that it expects lower sales and profit in 2023 after demand weakened significantly in late 2022, pulling down quarterly performance.
New state laws banning products with “forever chemicals”—from carpets and fast-food wrappers to ski wax—are taking effect as momentum grows nationally to get rid of substances that accumulate in human bodies and are linked to serious health problems. As of this month, Maine has banned the sale of residential carpets with long-lasting chemicals known as PFAS and became the first state to require companies to report products that contain the chemicals. In Washington and Vermont, companies can no longer sell or use food packaging, such as wrappers and pizza boxes, that contain them. Vermont’s ban on ski waxes with the chemicals begins in July.
3M recently said it would wind down production of PFAS, or ‘forever chemicals,’ so named because they take a long time to break down in the environment. 3M Co.’s decision to quit making “forever chemicals” represents a tactical retreat aimed at containing its potential liability over its products in legal fights expected to last for years, analysts say. 3M is defending itself against allegations that chemicals and products it has made for decades have contaminated drinking water and pose health risks. Legal and industry analysts expect 3M to be engaged for years in remediating alleged soil and water contamination from forever chemicals, which have been used in industrial and consumer products including nonstick cookware, carpeting and firefighting foam.
PFAS testing at a laboratory in Holland, Mich. New drinking water standards could require thousands of public water systems to install additional filtration systems. New federal drinking water standards could ratchet up legal pressure on 3M Co., DuPont de Nemours Inc. and other companies that manufactured or used so-called forever chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency has been stepping up scrutiny of chemicals known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The agency has said it is planning to propose the first federal drinking water limits on them in the coming months, a move some legal experts say could prompt additional lawsuits against PFAS manufacturers.
Benjamin Zacks and his brother started a financial-data firm that would help change the way the stock market evaluates public companies. Mr. Zacks and his older brother, Len, collected Wall Street analysts’ predictions for companies’ quarterly profits and distilled them into consensus estimates. Zacks Investment Research Inc., the company they started, said it was the first in the U.S. to distribute the quarterly consensus estimates to investors in the early 1980s, though another company had earlier started compiling estimates for companies’ annual income. Zacks’ calculations for per-share profits or losses gave investors a handy comparison to actual results and provided a catalyst for stocks to rise or fall in the aftermath of quarterly results.
Executive Managed Seminal Computer System at IBM
  + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Bob Tita | ) www.wsj.com   time to read: 1 min
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/executive-managed-seminal-computer-system-at-ibm-11669390727
Aviation Maverick Started Helicopter Company From Scratch
  + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Bob Tita | ) www.wsj.com   time to read: 1 min
Frank Robinson founded Robinson Helicopter to serve an untapped market for helicopters aimed at civilian uses. Frank Robinson couldn’t convince the aviation industry to change its approach to helicopters, so he changed the business by making them himself. Mr. Robinson started Robinson Helicopter Co. in Torrance, Calif., nearly 50 years ago on a hunch there was an untapped market for helicopters for civilian uses, such as cattle herding, sightseeing trips and business travel.
Generac’s Generator Sales Hurt by Lack of Installers
  + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Bob Tita | ) www.wsj.com   time to read: 1 min
Generac Holdings Inc. said its dealers are struggling to keep up with orders for backup generators, leading the company to lower its sales forecast while customers wait months for installations. The Wisconsin-based manufacturer opened a new factory in South Carolina last year and has overcome supply-chain bottlenecks and labor shortages that constrained generator production during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, the company says it needs more dealers and electricians to install its generators as customer orders pile up.
A Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in September, when the electric-motorcycle brand became a public company. Harley-Davidson Inc.’s LiveWire subsidiary is off to a rough start as a public company, as its electric motorcycles struggle to attract riders and investors. Shares of LiveWire Group Inc. have fallen about 15% since the merger in late September with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. The deal yielded about half the cash proceeds Harley anticipated, with most of the SPAC investors withdrawing their money rather than holding LiveWire shares after the deal went through, according to a regulatory filing.
Steel Companies’ Profits Hurt by Falling Prices
  + stars: | 2022-10-30 | by ( Bob Tita | ) www.wsj.com   time to read: 1 min
Cleveland-Cliffs steel mill in Cleveland; the company is the largest U.S. supplier of steel to the auto industry. Steel prices in the U.S. have fallen to the lowest level in two years, shrinking steel companies’ profits but giving manufacturers hope for lower material costs. Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., United States Steel Corp., Nucor Corp. and Steel Dynamics Inc. reported significantly lower profits from their steelmaking operations during the quarter that wrapped up at the end of September, compared with the same period last year when prices were at record levels.
Caterpillar said sales of its construction equipment increased to $6.3 billion in the latest quarter boosted by higher sales across all regions. Caterpillar said its quarterly sales climbed by 21% as the company sold more equipment and raised prices, offsetting rising production costs and the strengthening U.S. dollar. Caterpillar said markets for its construction and mining equipment and engines for transportation and energy generation stayed strong, despite weakening consumer spending pulling down other industries. Caterpillar said its dealers added inventory in the quarter in response to rising demand from customers, particularly in North America—the company’s largest market—where its machinery and engine sales grew by 33% from the same period a year earlier.
Harley-Davidson said revenue grew 21% in its most recent quarter, as the company shipped more motorcycles to make up for a production outage last spring. Shipments of motorcycles rose 19% as the company replenished dealer inventories after a supply-chain problem in May stopped production for more than two weeks. The company estimated it lost production of 10,000 to 12,000 motorcycles during the outage.
3M said the strong dollar reduced sales by about 5% in the latest quarter. 3M cut its profit and sales forecast for the year, as weakening demand from customers and the U.S. dollar’s strength against foreign currencies pulled down quarterly sales. Sales of the industrial conglomerate’s products, which include Scotch tape, bandages, furnace filters and safety equipment, fell 3.6% from the same period last year, 3M said. Executives said inflation weighed on consumer spending, and declining cases of Covid-19 reduced demand for the company’s face masks.
Whirlpool Cuts Production to Counter Falling Appliance Sales
  + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( Bob Tita | ) www.wsj.com   time to read: 1 min
Whirlpool slashed production of refrigerators, dish washers and other home appliances by more than a third during its most recent quarter to shrink inventories as consumer demand diminished, executives said. The Benton Harbor, Mich.-based company cut its profit forecast for 2022 by about half, warning that high costs were likely to persist into next year as appliance demand remains muted.
Steelworkers Union Approves Contract With Cleveland-Cliffs
  + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Bob Tita | ) www.wsj.com   time to read: 1 min
The United Steelworkers union has ratified a four-year contract with steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs while it remains divided with United States Steel Corp. over wages and other major issues, the union said. United Steelworkers, which represents more than 20,000 hourly workers at the two companies, said the contract with Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs delivers improved wages, insurance and pension benefits, issues that workers are also pushing for in talks with U.S. Steel at a time when profits for steelmakers have boomed.
Strong Dollar Pressures U.S. Manufacturing Rebound
  + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Bob Tita | ) www.wsj.com   time to read: 1 min
The strengthening U.S. dollar threatens to undermine a rebound in American manufacturing, handing foreign producers an advantage in selling into the U.S., executives and economists said. The U.S. dollar’s surging value relative to the euro, the Japanese yen, the British pound and other currencies is making foreign-made goods cheaper to import, while exports of U.S.-made goods grow more expensive for foreign buyers. For U.S. manufacturers operating overseas factories, their sales in foreign currencies are worth less in dollars now because of the unfavorable exchange rates caused by the strengthening dollar.
Food & Services News
  + stars: | 2022-09-12 | by ( Alistair Macdonald | Karolina Jeznach | Rachel Wolfe | ) www.wsj.com   time to read: 1 min
TechThe grocery-delivery company is one of the few companies in Silicon Valley moving toward a public listing in what may be one of the slowest years for IPOs in decades.
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