Prime Minister Stephen Harper is gaining support among Canadians for his plan to ship oilsands crude to China after President Barack Obama rejected TransCanada Corp. (TRP)
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Few U.S. companies plan to step up hiring in the next six months although they do expect the economy to be a bit stronger this year, according to a poll released on Monday.
The National Association for Business Economics’ industry survey found that two-thirds of respondents expected no change in employment at their companies over the first half of the year. That was the highest share in recent quarters.
Although the U.S. jobless rate fell to a near three-year low of 8.5 percent in December, fewer businesses said they would hire more workers, compared with the previous industry poll.
The survey, which was conducted between December 15 2011, and January 5 2012, found that 65 percent of respondents expect gross domestic product growth to exceed 2 percent between the fourth quarter of last year and the last quarter of 2012.
That was higher than the 1.6 percent growth rate economists polled by Reuters found.
About two-thirds of the companies surveyed said the European debt crisis would have little impact on their sales over the first half the year, while 27 percent of respondents said they expected to see a decline in sales of 10 percent or less.
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It takes Mikael Ohlsson five minutes _ and the help of one other person _ to assemble IKEA’s Ektorp sofa.
After 33 years at the Swedish home-ware chain, the 54-year-old chief executive is an expert at configuring IKEA’s famous flat-pack furniture.
But Ohlsson is not bragging about the fact that he can beat the assembly time the company itself advertises by some 10 minutes. What makes him proud is that the Ektorp can be flat-packed at all.
Seated on a “Blekinge white” example of the Ektorp in a cozily furnished exhibition room at an IKEA store in Zaventem, Belgium, Ohlsson recounts how, until recently, the popular couch also came packed in one of the company’s biggest cardboard boxes _ a pain for customers to squeeze into their cars or carry up narrow staircases.
But then in 2010, IKEA’s product designers came up with a way of breaking the Ektorp into different pieces. The results was a package half its former size, which the company claims took some 7,477 trucks off the roads and cut its yearly CO2 emissions by 4,700 tons. Savings in production and transport costs knocked euro100 ($128) off the price IKEA charges its customers, Ohlsson pointed out.
It’s innovations like these, the CEO says, that make IKEA so successful even in the uncertain economic times that some of its biggest markets are facing.
On Friday, IKEA reported a 10.3 percent jump in net profit to euro2.97 billion ($3.81 billion) for the year ended Aug. 31, even though it cut prices by 2.6 percent. Revenue rose 6.9 percent to euro25.17 billion in the same period and Ohlsson says the sales pace has been accelerating since then _ even as stock markets around the world have taken a dive amid the worsening financial crisis in Europe.
“We are becoming a more natural choice when people are looking after their spending or are concerned about the future,” says Ohlsson, his black trousers, black sweater and half-rimmed glasses all possessing the understatement of a Billy bookcase.
“A lot of people see that home is a very important place, maybe the most important place in their lives.”
While sales have fallen in some Southern European countries like Greece, Ohlsson says IKEA has gained market share in all of them.
Over the past decade, the company expanded into big emerging markets like Russia and China, although 79 percent of its sales are still generated in Europe. In the next two or three years, IKEA wants to open stores in Serbia and Croatia and it has recently bought land in South Korea.
But the biggest opportunity may lie in India, a fast-growing country of around 1 bad credit unsecured personal loans.2 billion people, that Ohlsson says IKEA has been eyeing “patiently but also impatiently” for years.
“The impatience is that of course there are a lot of people that are moving into the city, have better incomes and want to furnish their homes and that’s why there is space for us,” says Ohlsson. “And patient because we wanted FDI (foreign direct investment) legislation to change.”
That change happened last week, when the Indian Commerce Ministry announced it would allow foreign companies that sell products under a single-brand name, such as IKEA, to own 100 percent of their stores there.
Ohlsson and his chief financial officer, Soeren Hansen, say the company is still studying the fine print, to make sure, for instance, that requirements to source a certain percentage of products locally won’t interrupt its cherished value chain, where it controls design, production, storage and retail.
In contrast to other companies, which are under pressure to quickly produce new value for shareholders, IKEA can move more slowly. The retailer is not traded on the stock market, but is owned by a foundation controlled by the family of its octogenarian founder Ingvar Kamprad.
That structure not only protects IKEA from being split up or taken over, but, says Ohlsson, allows him to make investments in new markets or store upgrades that may not pay off for several years.
Throughout the conversation, the CEO stresses IKEA’s eco-friendly policies and humble origins in a poor area of Sweden. In the Zaventem store on the outskirts of Brussels, solar panels on the roof provide up to 20 percent of the energy. The company owns several wind parks and one of its Berlin stores uses local wastewater to control internal temperatures.
IKEA has come a long way from its start in the Smaland region in Southern Sweden. Today it employs 131,000 people in 41 countries and its 287 stores drew in 655 million customers last year.
Ohlsson says he believes the urge to upgrade and become more comfortable does not seem to recede during an economic downturn. Asked whether IKEA’s business was “recession-proof,” Ohlsson laughs somewhat embarrassed.
“I wouldn’t say it like that and it would not be humble to say it,” he said.
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Australia unexpectedly lost jobs for a second straight month in December, capping the nation
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Ralcorp board OKs spinoff — Ralcorp Holdings Inc.’s board has approved the spinoff of its Post cereals business, the food maker said Tuesday, and the stock distribution is set to happen Feb. 3. The St. Louis company said it will complete the separation of the two businesses by giving at least 80 percent of Post Holdings Inc.’s outstanding stock to Ralcorp shareholders of record as of Jan. 30. Each stockholder will get one share of Post for every two shares of Ralcorp held on the record date. Ralcorp will maintain a stake in Post. Ralcorp’s stock will continue to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the “RAH” ticker symbol. Post is expected to start trading on the NYSE under the “POST” ticker symbol Feb. 3.
Will new car sales rise? — That clunker in America’s driveway has reached a record old age, but there are signs that people may be growing confident enough in the economy to get a whiff of that fresh new car scent very soon. The average age of a car or truck in the U.S. hit a record 10.8 years last year as job security and other economic worries kept many people from making big-ticket purchases. That’s up from the old record of 10.6 years in 2010, and it and continues a trend that dates to 1995, when the average age of a car was 8.4 years, according to a study of state vehicle registration data by the Southfield, Mich.-based Polk automotive research firm. However, Polk Vice President Mark Seng says that a rebound in sales last year and expected growth for the next couple of years is likely to slow the growth rate in the age of cars as a whole in America.
Airbus touts record in orders — Airbus took in a record number of orders for new commercial aircraft last year as strong demand for its revamped single-aisle plane helped it best U.S. rival Boeing Co. in the race for orders for the fourth year running. The European jet maker said Tuesday that it took in 1,419 net new orders in 2011, worth $140 billion, well above Boeing’s total of 805 aircraft. That topped the previous record of 1,413 net orders recorded by Boeing in 2007. Airbus also delivered 534 aircraft last year, up from 510 a year earlier and keeping the title of world’s biggest jet maker that it has held since 2003. Boeing delivered 477 aircraft last year.
Yahoo co-founder leaves firm — Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang is leaving the struggling company’s board. The departure, announced Tuesday, comes just two weeks after Yahoo Inc. hired former PayPal executive Scott Thompson as its CEO. Yang expressed his support of Thompson in his resignation. He had been on Yahoo’s board of directors since the company’s 1995 inception. Yang also is stepping down from the boards of China’s Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan. Yahoo is negotiating to sell its stakes in both companies.
earnings
Citigroup’s loan portfolio improved late last year, partly because Americans were better about paying down credit card debt. But choppy financial markets hurt its investment banking profits, and the bank missed expectations. Profit fell 11 percent in the last three months of last year. to $1.16 billion, or 38 cents per share, on revenue of $17.2 billion. A year earlier, Citigroup made $1.3 billion on revenue of $18.4 billion.
Lee Enterprises, owner of the Post-Dispatch and other newspapers, reported a profit of $14.6 million, or 32 cents per share, for the quarter that ended Dec. 25. That compares to $19 million, or 42 cents per share, in the same quarter of 2010. Lee, based in Davenport, Iowa, said the year-over-year comparison would be positive if not for refinancing costs and other unusual items. Excluding such matters, profits would equal 38 cents per share for the recent quarter, compared with 32 cents a year earlier. Operating revenue was down 3.9 percent in the quarter compared with a year earlier. As in earlier periods, Lee showed sharp gains in digital advertising while print ads, which make up the bulk of its advertising, continued to decline. Combined print and digital advertising was down 6.1 percent. Lee filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month, submitting a reorganization plan pre-approved by the vast majority of its creditors. Chief Financial Officer Carl Schmidt said Tuesday that the court will be asked to set Jan. 30 as the date to make the plan effective, allowing the company to exit bankruptcy. (Staff reports)
Pulaski Financial Corp., owner of Pulaski Bank, reported a slight decline in profit in the first fiscal quarter, compared with a year earlier. The bank earned of $2.525 million, or 23 cents per share, compared with $2.601 million, or 24 cents, a year earlier. CEO Gary Douglass said he expects “meaningful, year-over-year earnings improvement” for this year. (Jim Gallagher)
TD Ameritrade said its fiscal first-quarter net income grew 5 percent, though its revenue was almost unchanged. The online brokerage posted $152 million in net income, or about 27 cents per share, up from $145 million, or 25 cents, a year earlier. Revenue fell less than 1 percent to $653.4 million.
A steadier mortgage business, higher commercial lending and an increase in deposits lifted Wells Fargo & Co.’s fourth-quarter profit by 20 percent. The bank reported that the amount of mortgages it wrote in the last three months of last year jumped 35 percent compared with the third quarter, to $120 billion. Overall loan balances rose to $769.6 billion, up 2 percent from a year earlier. The bank, the largest consumer lender in the U.S., reported a 2 percent increase in commercial loans, to $5.6 billion, reflecting direct lending and the purchase of portfolios from other lenders. The bank’s brokerage division, Wells Fargo Advisors, is based in St. Louis.
— Find full versions of these stories at stltoday.com/business
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Those that count out exact change for their morning brew at Tim Hortons will either have to practice ordering a different size or fork over a few extra pennies.
The beloved Canadian coffee joint will shift the names of its sizes starting next Monday to make room for a 24 oz. cup
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One of the biggest suppliers of oil to the United States may shut off the spigot this weekend, pushing crude and gasoline prices higher for Americans.
Nigeria, which supplies 8 percent of U.S. oil imports, could see production halted if striking workers walk off the job Sunday. Workers are demanding the return of a vital government fuel subsidy that has kept gasoline prices low in that impoverished and restive nation of 160 million people.
It’s unclear how much of Nigeria’s production would be affected. At worst, the country’s 20,000 unionized oil workers could take as much as 2.4 million barrels of daily crude production off the market, striking at the heart of Nigeria’s oil-dependent economy.
Even if strikers are only partially successful, fears of tightened global supplies could raise oil prices by $5-$10 per barrel on futures markets next week. Gasoline prices would follow, rising by as much as 10 cents per gallon and forcing U.S. drivers to spend an additional $36 million a day at the pump.
Gasoline now costs $3.39 per gallon (89 cents a liter) after rising 11 cents since the start of the year. Experts predict the national average could rise as high as $4.25 per gallon ($1.12 a liter) in 2012.
The Nigerian government already has offered a smaller, temporary fuel subsidy and will meet with union leaders on Saturday. The strike could be called off but protesters have promised to halt production if they don’t get the full, $8 billion subsidy restored.
Disruptions would have a long-term impact on Nigeria’s economy. Union president Babatunde Ogun said it could take six months to a year to restart oil fields once they’re shut down.
“If everything comes to a standstill, the government will budge,” Ogun told reporters this week in Lagos.
The threat to shut off oil production is the latest move by protesters after a week of violent, anti-government clashes throughout the country. The strike began Monday to challenge President Goodluck Jonathan’s decision to abandon the fuel subsidy.
“It’s going to be a showdown this weekend,” in Nigeria, Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit said. “You can only hope that cooler heads will prevail.”
It’s hard to predict how effective a national oil worker strike would be.
Oil production facilities are usually automated, allowing them to pump oil out of the ground without anyone at the platform. But if something breaks, if the pressure in the well fluctuates, or if other problems occur that cause an automatic system shutdown, there wouldn’t be anyone there to get production running again.
It’s likely oil companies operating in the region _Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Total SA and Eni S.P.A. _ would simply shutter their platforms and wait for political tensions to subside, Gheit said. Oil companies could still export oil from storage terminals on the coast; that is, if union workers at the terminals stay on the job.
The price of oil already has swung up and down this year because of supply concerns in another oil-rich part of the world, the Persian Gulf. Iran, the world’s third-largest crude exporter, is sparring with the U.S. and Europe over its nuclear program.
While Iranian imports are banned in the U.S. because of long-standing tensions, the country supplies 2.2 million barrels per day to the rest of the world, including Europe. Meanwhile, Libya is quickly restarting oil fields that were shut down during the anti-government uprising last year. It has about 1 million barrels per day back online, and it expects to increase production to pre-rebellion levels of 1.6 million barrels per day by mid-year.
Oil prices fell by $2.86 this week to end at $98.70 per barrel in New York. Prices dropped as Europe delayed a decision to ban Iranian imports. But they could snap back up given the variety of geopolitical problems affecting world supplies, including the threat of a Nigerian oil worker strike.
The U.S. government expects the price of oil to average $100.25 per barrel this year.
Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research, said oil could jump by $5-$10 per barrel if the strike begins Sunday. Nigeria ranks behind Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Venezuela in oil exports to the U.S. It produces a valuable crude variety that is easier and cheaper to turn into gasoline than others.
Investors, who have been numbed from years of political unrest in Nigeria that included sabotage, thievery, environmental protests and other operating problems, may wait to see how the government works with the union. Nigerian oil always seems to be under a perpetual threat of some kind, Lynch said.
“Though this time seems more serious,” he said.
Nigerians have been upset for years as international oil production damaged the environment with little apparent domestic benefits. One of the only visible perks was the fuel subsidy. Removing it forced gasoline prices to jump overnight from $1.70 per gallon to at least $3.50 per gallon _ a crippling increase for a nation where most people live on less than $2 a day.
The government still seems determined to have its way, Barclays analyst Helima Croft said, but an oil field strike would be a game changer. If workers can shut down oil production, it’s only a matter of time before declining oil revenues will force the government to cave, she said.
“Any disruptions in either oil production or exports would severely constrain government activities and its ability to meet its obligations,” Croft said.
Eighty percent of the country’s revenue comes from oil.
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Things are looking up in Europe, at least for now, as borrowing costs in Italy and Spain eased Thursday following strong debt auctions.
Spain’s auction of nearly €10 billion worth of bonds in three different maturities met with strong demand, as did Italy’s €8.5 billion of 12-month bills.
The European Central Bank was "supplying quite a bit of liquidity" by buying an undisclosed amount of bonds to prop up the market, as it typically does, said Frances Hudson, global thematic strategist for Standard Life Investments in Edinburgh, Scotland.
But the auctions were also driven by newfound confidence in the new leadership of the Spanish and Italian governments, she added. "You go into a halo effect because you’ve got a new government so people are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt."
German and Italy sound upbeat on debt crisis
David Rodriguez, quantitative strategist at DailyFX, noted that Spain wound up selling nearly twice the amount it had planned on auctioning, which signals real market demand for bonds, not just support from the ECB.
"Maybe the ECB stepped in, but the ECB wouldn’t have the firepower to put €5 billion into that auction," he said. "I think what investors are seeing is the probability that these nations will remain solvent for the foreseeable future."
The healthy demand for Italian and Spanish bonds helped to drive up European stocks. London’s FTSE () closed higher by 1.2%, the DAX () in Frankfurt rose 2 no teletrack payday loan.5% and the CAC 40 () in Paris jumped 2.3%.
The auction results also helped to drive down bond yields. The average yield for the Italian 10-year bond slipped to 6.63%, remaining below the anxiety benchmark of 7%, and the average yield for the 10-year Spanish bond dropped to 5.13%.
But Hudson cautioned against extrapolating too much from the Italian bond auction and its impact on the 10-year bond yields, since it was for bills, not bonds. Also, she said she wasn’t sure how long the renewed confidence would last.
Don’t get too comfortable with European bonds, urged Marc Chandler, strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman, noting that more auctions lie ahead.
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"Risk lies with the bond sale tomorrow, especially with the large increase in Italian bond prices today as the 5-year yield is off 60 [basis points] and the 10-year yield has dropped about 40 [basis points]," wrote Chandler, in a market report. "The year is long, and the amount that the sovereigns and banks need to raise is large."
The euro also got a modest boost Thursday, edging to $1.28 against the U.S. dollar, after hitting an 18-month low of $1.26 on Wednesday.
"At least on the short end of the curve, you see a little bit of confidence returning to the market," said Rodriguez, referring to the euro and European bonds.
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Get set for a messy fight for control of Canadian Pacific Railway.
Bill Ackman, the no-holds barred activist investor behind U.S. hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, has made it no secret that he wants CP
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