Manufacturer News: 2.4.2010

Who Bought What

CHLORIDE GROUP PLC—bought AEES of Lyon, France, which has 135 employees, had $30 million in sales in the year ended Sept. 30, 2008, and is in the secure power business.

FEDERAL SIGNAL—said it would buy Sirit Inc. (Toronto) for $48 million in cash. The acquired company is in the RF technology business; it will become part of FS’s safety and security systems group, according to The Daily Deal (Jan. 14).

Note: Back in November, FS sold Pauluhn Electric to Cooper Industries.

OCTUS—this energy-efficiency company, with shares traded on the OTC bulletin board, has signed “a nonbinding letter-of-intent” to buy Quantum Energy Solutions. QES, according to Octus, is “a pioneer in the development of energy conservation projects.”

PREFORMED LINE PRODUCTS—this company, based in Cleveland (trading under the symbol PLPC), has purchased—from Tyco Electronics—the Dulmison operation, which makes pole-line hardware and vibration-control products for electric utilities.

TITAN ENERGY—this company, with shares trading on the OTC bulletin board, said it’s “a leader in distributed power generation products and intelligent energy management services.” It bought Sustainable Solutions of Minnesota, which provides energy-efficiency services to industrial customers in the Midwest.

Financings, Finaglings, Lawsuits, & Layoffs

ACUITY BRANDS—the company said it will redeem $24.26 million (all of them) of its outstanding 8.375% senior notes due in 2010.

AETI—Charles Dauber, who become president/CEO of American Electric Technologies on Sept. 21, wrote a letter (dated Jan. 28) to shareholders. There are no unusual revelations in the letter; it describes the company’s strategy from here.

AITI vs. SYLVANIA—American Induction Technologies, Inc., according to a Jan. 25 release, “has responded to a complaint” filed by OSRAM SYLVANIA in U.S. District Court. According to the release, OS “has accused AITI, which manufactures high-technology induction lighting fixtures, of infringing a patent” which SYLVANIA obtained in the 1990s. The response: AITI denies the allegations “and challenges the validity of the patent.”

COLEMAN CABLE—raised cash by selling $235 million of senior notes (9% interest rate) due 2018. The company said it would use the $231.7 million it would net from the sale to pay the holders of its 9.875% senior notes due in 2012.

COMMSCOPE—the Connectivity Solutions Manufacturing facility in Omaha, Neb., will lose 110 workers in March, reducing the workforce to fewer than 400. The company said it is “analyzing options for the facility’s future;” those options were said to include closing the place.

ENERGY FOCUS—got a notice form NASDAQ that the company qualifies for delisting from the NASDAQ Global Market (because the price of EFOI shares closed at prices below $1/share for 30 straight trading days).

GENERATION BRANDS—a Jan. 26 release said the company (which owns Seagull and other brands you know) has successfully emerged from its prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy—with $150 million of debt gone from its balance sheet. The prepack filing took just 53 days.

HUBBELL INC.—“at least 200” company workers in CT “have lost or will lose their jobs primarily because of foreign competition,” according to that state’s Labor Department, as reported Jan. 5 by the Connecticut Post. The newspaper said that U.S. Labor Department investors said the workers lost jobs because “specifically Hubbell has increased imports of electrical and electronic products that are manufactured in China.”

QD VISION—DTE Energy Ventures (which is a unit of a Michigan-based utility) has invested $3 million in QD, which owns Quantum Light (“nanotechnology-based products for solid-state lighting and displays). That announcement came Jan. 21; one month earlier, QD Vision closed an initial funding round of $10 million.

PURE SPECRUM—holders of shares in the former PureSpectrum (symbol PSPM) have until Feb. 18 to exchange them for current shares (PSRU).

SIEMENS—said on Jan. 28 that it would lay off “nearly 2,000 workers” at its drive technologies and industry solutions divisions, according to MarketWatch.com.

 
Financial Snapshots

COOPER INDUSTRIES—Q4 sales came in at $1.26 billion; the full year was $5.07 billion. Those figures were down 17.5% and 22.3%, respectively, from year-earlier results. If TedMag reads the company’s financial release correctly, the year also saw a $400 million reduction in Cooper’s net debt (“total debt net of cash and investments”).

How about the Electrical Products operation? Revenues of $4.5 billion were down 21.6% vs. 2008. Q4 was down only 18.8%—a 20.8% in “core” revenues adjusted higher thanks to a 1.5% gain from forex and .3% tacked on via acquisitions.

Revenue per share came in at $2.61 for 2009, vs. $3.60 in 2008. The company said it sees 2010 earnings ranging from $2.70 to $2.90, “with revenue down 1% to 4% including currency translation and acquisition revenue of approximately 2%.”

HUBBELL—Q4 sales dropped 9%, to $652 million, compared to 2008’s same quarter, resulting in $2.36 billion in 2009 full-year sales (down 13%). Note that the Q4 results were shaped by acquisitions, with Burndy (added in Q4 2009) and Varon (December 2008) contributing 12% to net sales in the quarter. Sales were also pumped up 2% by positive forex translation. From the company’s release, here’s the 2010 outlook—from Tim Powers, chairman, president, and CEO:

            “We expect our largest market, nonresidential construction, to decline by approximately 20%. Construction activity is expected to decline on the heels of sharply lower construction starts throughout the past year and a half.

            “The utility market for transmission and distribution products is expected to grow modestly…driven by the build out of new transmission lines from alternative energy sources such as wind, infrastructure spending to upgrade and modernize the grid that is supported by stimulus spending, and a housing recovery.

            “The industrial markets are likely to improve from severely depressed levels in 2009; we are beginning to see early signs of this with the latest data including capacity utilization data trending upward.

            “The residential market is expected to improve from historically low levels but we remain cautious about the magnitude of the recovery being forecasted.

            “When you combine all of these end market outlooks with the full year impact of Burndy, we would expect to have approximately the same level of sales in 2010 as 2009.”

ROCKWELL—Q1 of FY2010 ended Dec. 31 with revenue down 10% to $1.07 billion. The company now sees revenue for the year coming in at $4.4 billion to $4.6 billion. See the company’s release here. From Keith Nosbusch, chairman/CEO: “On a year-over-year basis, organic revenue declined in the quarter, but the rate of decline has moderated considerably, and we saw strong growth in emerging Asia. We also delivered another strong quarter of free cash flow.”

TEXTRON—Greenlee’s parent posted revenues of $10.5 billion in the fiscal year just ended, down 25% from the previous year. The company thinks this year will come in around $10.8 billion. Release.

How the market reacted (data from Yahoo! Finance):

Cooper Industries: the company’s stock closed up 3.5% on the week, to $42.90.

Hubbell: shares fell 3.1%, to $41.93.

Rockwell: up 4.8% on the week, to $48.24.

Textron: closed last week at $19.53, down 8.4% on the week.

For comparison purposes: The S&P 500 fell 1.64% from Friday to Friday