China Acquisition in Aerospace
One of the industry news items today was the announcement that China’s AVIC (Aviation Industry of China) is in talks to buy a small US airplane market. This is interesting on many levels and truly shows how the world is changing — lest anyone thought we are really not that global. AVIC is state owned […]
Unemployment, Productivity Improvement and Global 5000 Companies
The economy appears to be getting better .. albeit in fits & starts … and corporations are reporting strong results on a year over year basis. Yet, there is still a high unemployment rate in many countries. Some argue that real job growth will be the result of small business hiring and that may be […]
Global 5000 Companies Update — M&A activity changes the picture
One of the things we do with The Global 5000 companies database, is to keep track of the acquisitions, divestitures, mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies of the companies. As we have seen, the past couple of years saw a fair number of Chapter 11 reporting. We are now in a period of IPO filings and a […]
2 Japanese Steel firms Merging
This week, two more Global 5000 companies announced they were merging … Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Industries. Just watching The Global 5000 companies on a regular basis we see mergers and combinations on a regular basis. This one feels different. It is not often we see large, Japanese companies (outside the financial sector) merge. […]
Another Global 5000 Company Merger and an Important GM Release
One thing about watching the companies that are part of the Global 5000 – there is always something interesting to watch as these firms continue to look for growth and improving their business. This morning reports included the news that two companies in the packaging/paper / container markets are getting together with TennRock acquiring Smurfit-Stone […]
Chinese Bank Signs Deal to Buy US Branches
In a news report today, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has agreed to a deal to buy US branches of Bank of East Asia of Hong Kong. ICBC is 70% owned by the government of China and is number 13 in The Global 5000 banking sector with approximately $70 billion in revenue. Bank […]
Numbers Can Be Head Scratchers
Like many of us these days, we have been watching for the hopeful signs of economic growth and much of the attention naturally turns to GDP and GDP growth. While we ‘kind of’ know what GDP represents, the details are best left up to the economists — those of the dismal science. To see an […]
A Merger of Utilities
This past week we noted the announcement of a merger/acquisition involving Nicor (#1536 on the Global 5000) and AGL Resources (#1839). These are not that common in that many utility companies are either state / government owned or quasi-government. We have 120 Utility companies in the Global 5000 representing approximately $1.4 trillion in revenue. The […]
Airlines Flying Again
During this recession, the airlines have been hit as hard as any industry … and all who have done any travel during these years have felt it as well with reduced services. After a year of back and forth jumping thru the regulatory hurdles, British Airways and Iberia announced their shareholders have approved their merger. […]
Caterpillar Makes a Buy
Caterpillar announced they are acquiring Bucyrus International. Caterpillar is number 2 in their industry segment and #153 in The Global 5000 list. Bucyrus is ranked 65 in Farm and Industrial Equipment industry and #1953 in the Global 5000. This industry segment has really felt the effect of the recession. Industry growth in 2007 was 14.9%, […]