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We break down 2024’s dealmaking activity by volume vs. 2023, what the most impactful transactions were, which distributors were frequent headliners and what to expect in 2025.
Profit increased 29 percent in the quarter.
Sales in December declined 1.8 percent.
Manufacturing Revival Radio talks with Martin Tauber of AdvancePierre Foods.
Fourth-quarter Manufacturing Barometer from PwC shows significant rise in optimism on U.S. economy, continued uncertainty on global conditions.
Profit decreased 0.7 percent from prior-year levels.
To maintain an edge over the competition, don’t hold back this year and gear up for the opportunities that do exist.
Fourth-quarter sales were also up from 2012, by 10 percent.
Architecture & Software and Control Products & Solutions segments both saw modest increases.
Acquisition of Navman Wireless is Danaher’s first in fleet/asset management.
Durable goods expenditures increased at a higher rate in the fourth quarter.
Fourth-quarter sales were 7.8 percent below 2011 levels.
Targeted, respectful messaging can strengthen your position with customers.
ITW forecasts “modest growth” in 2013 across all its geographies.
Fourth-quarter sales were up 5.5 percent.
North American demand was strong in the fourth quarter.
Sales-i is an SaaS sales development solution.
Online marketing offers tremendous opportunity in 2013; here are seven tips for success.
Report looks at how companies are approaching asset or business unit sales.
Experience is an asset earned over time Today we had the opportunity to speak with Mike Collins, Author and Founder of MPC Management. With over 40 years in the Manufacturing industry, authorship of 3 books and over 300 published Manufacturing focused articles Mike is a treasure-trove of Manufacturing knowledge. During our discussion today we focused […]
Are you a market leader in your sector? Did you innovate in 2012? Nominate your company today!
Manufacturing contracted in November for the fourth consecutive month, according to the latest Manufacturing Institute for Supply Management Report On Business.
When comparing November to October, the PMI indicates a continuing rapid rate of contraction in manufacturing, ISM reported. New orders have contracted for 12 consecutive months, and are at the lowest level since June 1980 when the index registered 24.2 percent.
Order backlogs have fallen to the lowest level since ISM began tracking the Backlog of Orders Index in January 1993. The Prices Index at 25.5 percent indicates that commodity prices continue to decline at a rapid rate. This is the lowest reading for the index since May 1949 when it registered 20.1 percent.
The two industries …
New orders for manufactured durable goods in October decreased $12.7 billion or 6.2% to $193.0 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced. This was the largest percentage decrease in new orders since October 2006 and followed two consecutive monthly decreases including a 0.2% September decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 4.4%. Excluding defense, new orders decreased 4.6%.
Shipments
Shipments of manufactured durable goods in October, down three consecutive months, decreased $5.0 billion or 2.4% to $202.9 billion. This followed a 0.2% September decrease.
Unfilled Orders
Unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods in October, down for the first time in 26 months, decreased $4.6 billion or 0.6% to $823.6 billion. This …
The GDP estimates released are based on more complete source data than were available for the advance estimates issued last month. In the advance estimates, the decrease in real GDP was 0.3 percent.
The decrease in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected negative contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), residential fixed investment, and equipment and software that were partly offset by positive contributions from federal government spending, private inventory investment, exports, nonresidential structures, and state and local government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.
Most of the major components contributed to the downturn in real GDP growth in the third quarter. The largest …
With everything that has happened in the past few months, it is no surprise that the economy is on nearly everyone’s mind, topping the list of concerns for manufacturers and distributors in the annual MDM Reader Survey. The collapse of financial markets and continued tightening of credit has added to the stress of everyday business.
It’s enough for me to manage my own company but now I must analyze my bank’s financials on an ongoing basis,”wrote one industrial distributor in the survey.
The next 12 to 18 months will be tough for many in the industry, says Brent Grover, CEO of Evergreen Consulting: “Demand is weak, margins are squeezed and most companies are faced with costly excess capacity.”
The U.S. government hopes that recently passed …
Rick Peterson, president of All-West Fasteners, Seattle, WA, a regional industrial fastener and electronic hardware and components distributor, recently spoke at the Specialty Tools and Fasteners Distributors Association convention and trade show in Denver, CO. He is the group’s outgoing president. The event drew nearly 4,500, down from the past two years but not far off 2005 attendance.
In his speech to the attendees, outgoing STAFDA President Rick Peterson touched on business practices his company has benefited from. One of those: Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI). The goal of VMI, he says, is to make sure the customer’s production line or job never shuts down due to a product shortage, and to minimize the total cost of supply.
Our VMI program has played a …
The U.S. Census Bureau announced that September 2008 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 $396.2 billion, down 1.5 percent from the revised August level, but up 9.1 percent from the September 2007 level. The August preliminary estimate was revised downward $2.5 billion or 0.6 percent. September sales of durable goods were down 1.0 percent from last month, but were up 3.5 percent from a year ago. Sales of nondurable goods were down 1.9 percent from last month, but were up 14.1 percent from last year. Sales of farm product raw materials were down 7.8 percent from last month and sales of chemicals and allied products were down 4.6 …
About this report: This is the MDM Public Distributor Report, provided on a quarterly basis to subscribers of Modern Distribution Management. The report is available online only.
Click here to download this report in pdf.
Not surprisingly, this last quarter’s earnings calls and annual analyst meetings were filled with public distributors’assuring investors that they were well-positioned to withstand the economic downturn.
“Our strong cash flow and liquidity, combined with a strong underleveraged balance sheet, gives us a powerful advantage against the small distributors who control the bulk of the market,”says MSC Industrial CFO Chuck Boehlke.<br ...
Privately-owned housing starts in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 791,000. This is 4.5% below the revised September estimate of 828,000 and is 38.0% below the revised October 2007 rate of 1,275,000.
Single-family housing starts in October were at a rate of 531,000; this is 3.3% below the September figure of 549,000. The October rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 247,000.
Year-to-date, housing starts were down 31.5% in the U.S. overall, 10.3% in the Northeast, 33.6% in the Midwest, 32% in the South and 38.2% in the West.
Building Permits
Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 708,000. This is 12.0% below the revised …
Manufactured housing, at least according to one Forbes article, is likely to be a stronger market than homes by the national builders when everything starts to rebound. Why? Because there will be more incentive to buy them. Apparently, the U.S. government will be including them under its favored lending programs and the Federal Housing Administration is increasing loan limits for people buying manufactured homes but not the land underneath.
FHA loans, according to Forbes, have grown popular lately because the loans allow for a low down payment. The agency has gone from backing 2% of U.S. mortgage debt in 2006 to a third of all home loans in 2008, Forbes says.
Read the full article at forbes.com <a ...
The U.S. economy is in the midst of a severe recession and will face serious challenges through 2009, according to a new report.
The Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI Quarterly Economic Forecast says that inflation-adjusted GDP growth decelerated to 1.4% in 2008 and will decline 1% in 2009. The 2009 GDP forecast is down from 1.3% growth projected in MAPI’s previous quarterly report in August.
Manufacturing production growth will sink into negative territory in 2008, declining 1.4% following an already low 1.7% growth in 2007. It is likely to fall further in 2009, declining by a significant 4.2%. The previous quarterly MAPI report had forecast production to decline by 0.5% in 2008 and to grow by 1.6% next year.
Production in …
For most of us, a recession would not be a new experience,” says Rick Peterson, outgoing president of the Specialty Tool and Fasteners Distributor Association (STAFDA). Peterson was speaking at the STAFDA’s annual trade show and conference November in Denver, CO.
He cited historical statistics in his speech: 10 recessions since World War II, on average lasting 10 months each, a peak unemployment rate of 7.6% and a decline of gross domestic product (GDP) of 1.8%. The two worst modern recessions, he says, were those of 1973-1975 and 1981-1982. In those, unemployment reached 9% and 10%. “History tells us recessions are frequent and short-lived before the business cycle self-corrects and prosperity returns,” Peterson says.
The chief economist for the Manufacturers …
Distributors focused on residential construction markets have had to find ways to adapt to the relatively nonexistent new housing market over the past year. Joe DeAngelo, CEO of HD Supply, told me in a recent interview that he credits his company’s exposure to diverse markets as reason it’s managed to stay afloat in current conditions.
But those diverse markets are starting to feel the pinch, as well. Infrastructure projects, which DeAngelo refers to as having endless critical demand,”are starting to fall off. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, cash-strapped cities like Philadelphia, Phoenix and Atlanta are requesting money from the federal bailout plan to help fund …
Wholesale prices fell 2.8% in October, seasonally adjusted, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported . This decrease followed a 0.4-percent decline in September and a 0.9-percent fall in August. At the earlier stages of processing, prices received by manufacturers of intermediate goods moved down 3.9% in October after declining 1.2% in September, and the crude goods index dropped 18.6% subsequent to a 7.9-percent decrease in the previous month.
Among finished goods in October, prices for energy goods fell 12.8% compared with a 2.9-percent decline a month earlier. The index for consumer foods edged down 0.2% following a 0.2-percent increase in the prior month. Prices for goods other than foods and energy rose 0.4% for the second …
Two-thirds of U.S.-based industrial manufacturers are pessimistic about the U.S. economy over the next 12 months, according to the third-quarter edition of the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Manufacturing Barometer. Ninety percent of survey respondents believe that the U.S. economy declined in the third quarter, up 13 points over last quarter and a 70 point increase from those who felt negative about the U.S. economy the same time last year.
As for international prospects, the majority of industrial manufacturers (80%) believe that the global economy declined -only 13% view the world economy as growing, which is a fraction of the 81% who believed it was growing last year. Of those manufacturers who market their products abroad, 63% are worried about the prospects of the …
Canadian manufacturing sales edged up 0.1% to $52.2 billion in September after a sizeable 3.7% decrease in August.
However, measured in constant dollars, manufacturing sales rose 0.7% compared with August as a result of decreasing industrial product prices. The constant dollar measurement takes price fluctuations into account, providing an indicator of the volume of sales during the month. The constant dollar gain in September followed a notable 4.0% decrease in August.
At the industry level, 13 of 21 manufacturing industries increased in September.
By Sector
The transportation equipment industry (+1.1%) reported the largest gain in September, increasing for the fourth time in five months. …
Industrial production increased 1.3% in October after a downwardly revised decline of 3.7% in September, the Federal Reserve reported. The revision to September output resulted, in part, from a larger estimate of the impact of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike on the chemical industry.
Manufacturing production, which dropped 3.7% in September, rose 0.6% in October. The output of mines advanced 6.1%, as most crude oil and natural gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico were brought back online after the hurricanes. The output of utilities rose 0.4%.
Industrial production in September and October was substantially affected by the hurricanes and a strike in the commercial aircraft industry. Excluding these special factors, total industrial production is estimated to have …
Every time we turn around, there’s another sign that the economy is hurting. On Monday, The Conference Board released its Employment Trends Index (ETI). The October index of 105.3 was down 1.8% from September and 12% from a year ago. The ETI has been declining for the past 15 months.
And Gad Levanon, senior economist with The Conference Board, isn’t optimistic about the near future. The sharp decline in the ETI in recent months suggests we will experience even greater deterioration in the labor market in the months ahead.”Demand for goods and services are down, and companies are responding by slashing their workforces, Levanon says. The reductions likely will continue for several quarters until the economy starts to see recovery.
But layoffs don’t have to be the …
Deals in the global industrial manufacturing sector slowed in the third quarter 2008, according to the recent PricewaterhouseCoopers’ report, Assembling Value: Industrial Manufacturing Mergers &Acquisitions Analysis -Third Quarter 2008.
The number of third-quarter deals with a value of at least $50 million will not match last year’s level of 207, but will approach the number announced in 2006, 169. The total value of deals announced in the third quarter, $35 billion, is behind last year’s $88 billion at this time. This is due to a drop in large deals of more than $1 billion. Tight credit markets are mostly to blame for the decline in large-deal volume.
Interest in industrial machinery targets continued to lead activity in industrial …
September U.S. manufacturing technology consumption totaled $439.51 million, according to the Association for Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors’Association. This total, as reported by companies participating in the USMTC program, was up 32.0% from August but down 1.4% from the total of $445.56 million reported for September 2007. With a year-to-date total of $3,462.69 million, 2008 is up 11.4% compared with 2007.
These numbers and all data in this report are based on the totals of actual data reported by companies participating in the USMTC program.
This solid September machine tool consumption report confirms the strong numbers from IMTS in September,”said Peter Borden, AMTDA President. “However, the financial uncertainty faced by …
MDM asked economists for their take on residential, commercial and institutional construction markets. Construction supply and building materials distributors also describe how they have adjusted to the new market realities. While many still write off 2009, some signs of improvement are emerging.
Signs that the boom in the housing market were coming to an end began appearing as early as 2006. At that time, companies like ORCO Construction Supply, Livermore, CA, began preparing themselves for what they thought would be a normal market correction.
We never expected it to get this bad,”says Hal Look, senior vice president of marketing and business development at ORCO and the incoming president of the Specialty Tools &Fasteners Distributors …
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