Industrials

Geely’s export success warns global rivals

19 Aug 2022

The $21 bln Chinese carmaker is growing overseas, despite political headwinds and consumer skepticism. Electric vehicles are targeted to make up half its sales by 2023. Boss Li Shufu is best known for acquiring Volvo, but now his own brands can compete in Europe and beyond.

CATL can pull off its risky reshuffle

2 Aug 2022

A director and second-largest shareholder at the $194 bln battery maker has quit and founder Robin Zeng is now both chair and general manager. Such moves can be red flags for investors. But as CATL goes global, a familiar face at the top is for now more reassuring than not.

GM and Ford are now juggling three crises

27 Jul 2022

The U.S. automakers are starting to figure out Covid-driven shortages – that was the first pickle. But long-term risks to both pricing and lithium supplies will make it more difficult to efficiently grow EVs. Plus pent-up demand only covers for a weakening consumer for so long.

VW’s CEO ouster heralds less noise, more muddle

25 Jul 2022

The $86 bln carmaker replaced Herbert Diess with Oliver Blume. It loses a bold champion of electric vehicles, but also one prone to gaffes and weakened by union battles. The decision to keep Blume in charge of both VW and Porsche, meanwhile, muddies the latter’s looming IPO.

GE’s new branding is appropriately pedestrian

18 Jul 2022

It took six months and thousands of conversations to name the $69 bln firm’s post-split divisions: GE Healthcare, GE Aerospace, and – the creative bit – GE Vernova. The separation is an effort to help shareholder value. With those names, GE is setting expectations low.

Toshiba ballot tees up a fresh Japan litmus test

27 Jun 2022

The $18 bln conglomerate backed board candidates from pushy investors Elliott and Farallon to rebuild shareholder trust. Then it helped broadcast another director’s opposition to them, undermining the effort. How domestic funds vote will gauge corporate governance progress.

Tesla’s pole position is a blessing, then a curse

3 Jun 2022

Boss Elon Musk wants to cut 10% of the $735 bln automaker’s workforce, even as peers ramp investments. Tesla, unencumbered by a gas-guzzler business, outmaneuvered older rivals to dominate EVs. But not having a legacy business to fall back on means it is more vulnerable, too.

GM draws target on Tesla with EV price cut

2 Jun 2022

Elon Musk’s carmaker stepped back from an ultra-low cost vehicle. But with GM slashing the price on its Bolt, the Detroit automaker has made a big move. Now GM can use its low sticker price to grab market share. It has little to lose – except for cash, which eventually runs out.

Boeing’s chief pilot has risky path out of dive

20 May 2022

A blizzard of bad news has pushed the $75 bln U.S. plane-maker’s market value below rival Airbus for the first time. Customers are fuming about delayed orders. Assuming it can actually deliver jets, the risk is CEO Dave Calhoun keeping buyers sweet with ever bigger discounts.

Rising costs put U.S. auto revamp in a jam

29 Apr 2022

Prices of cars from makers like Ford and GM are up by 13% in a year. But higher costs have caused profits to stagnate. Revamping businesses away from combustion engines is expensive, and adds pressure. They have few levers to pull, and little cushion to fund change.

GE braves cost inflation and confidence deflation

26 Apr 2022

The $99 bln machinery maker has weathered a slump in demand, only to be thwacked by supply chain and inflationary problems. Boss Larry Culp is ruthlessly cutting waste to offset things he can’t control. A 9% drop in shares suggests the market is losing patience.

Hydrogen’s civil war reveals its winner

31 Mar 2022

The element has a big role in beating climate change. But fans of natural gas-based “blue” hydrogen and its zero-carbon “green” cousin are constantly vying for supremacy. Soaring fossil-fuel prices and energy supply fears after Russia’s Ukraine invasion are handing green victory.

GE chief’s pay cut is a drop in the golden bucket

18 Mar 2022

Larry Culp had $10 mln knocked off his bonus after a year of shareholder anger and poor stock performance. Given the riches Culp has received to date, it’s a token gesture. As Goldman Sachs showed after a similar trim last year, such acts of contrition can be fleeting at best.

Electric-car companies face test of endurance

1 Mar 2022

Lordstown and Lucid shares sank on disappointing estimates of how many cars they will be able to produce. Where it was once enough just to show that making a car was possible, electric-vehicle hopefuls must now prove they can make many, while squeezed by supply challenges.

DuPont gets the better end of a deal this time

18 Feb 2022

The chemical giant is offloading old businesses for $11 billion as it refocuses on industries like self-driving and clean energy. While the deal looks better for the seller than it does buyer Celanese, DuPont’s overall strategy adds up to an expensive bet on the future.

ThyssenKrupp’s hydrogen hype is oddly conservative

13 Jan 2022

The German group is seeking 600 mln euros from an IPO of Nucera, which uses green power to make the gas from water. It expects the energy transition to inflate sales from almost nothing to 650 mln euros by 2025. Compared to hope-filled listed rivals, the valuation looks sober.

Capital Calls: 3G gets back to basics

31 Dec 2021

Concise views on global finance: The buyout firm’s latest acquisition of Dutch window-shade maker Hunter Douglas at a $7.1 billion valuation is outside its traditional food and drink focus, but fits the cost-cutting and M&A playbook.

DJI is a more elusive U.S. target than Huawei

16 Dec 2021

Washington is putting a bigger squeeze on the Chinese drone maker by blocking American investment in the company. But unlike Huawei’s telecom gear, DJI products are widely used in the United States, including by police. Western rivals are tiny, making an outright ban tricky.

3M is stuck in conglomerate purgatory

14 Dec 2021

The $100 bln firm known for its sticky notes is merging its food safety group, one of more than 20 divisions, with Neogen. The $4 bln deal won’t solve CEO Mike Roman’s problem: He is stuck with an array of businesses that have some overlaps without really belonging together.

Capital Calls: Risky banks, UK SPAC, AO World

23 Nov 2021

Concise views on global finance: A global watchdog reckons JPMorgan is once again the world’s most systemically important lender; investment firm Hambro Perks launches a UK blank-cheque vehicle; the British online retailer issues its second profit warning in two months.