Tag Archives: Recession

Loudon boatmaker Malibu Boats sets IPO price

malibu boats

Malibu Boats, the Loudon, Tenn.-based maker of watersports towboats, is the latest area company to go public.
The boat maker has set its IPO price at $14 per share and is scheduled to start trading today on the Nasdaq market under the symbol MBUU.
The company is looking to raise more than $100 million.
With the economy gaining strength and consumer confidence improving, Malibu’s timing looks good.
After toughing out the Great Recession, Malibu has seen its earnings rise in recent years as it has rolled out a number of new products. Malibu’s wakeboarding Surf Gate technology received its second patent last September.
Raymond James and Wells Fargo Securities are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. SunTrust Robinson Humphrey and BMO Capital Markets are acting as co-managers.
Click here for  more on Malibu from Seeking Alpha.
Click here for a Wall Street Journal Marketwatch report on Malibu.

China’s rapid growth could be good for Knoxville

China’s rapid economic acceleration could be a good thing for a piece of the Knoxville economy.022509searay1.jpg.jpg

Brunswick Corp., owner of Sea Ray Boats, which has manufacturing plants in the Knoxville region, expects a 25 percent increase in China sales in 2011.

“We believe the long-term potential in the marine business is larger than anywhere else in the world,” Brunswick CEO Dustan McCoy said in an interview April 2 with Bloomberg. “There is so much wealth here it is unique. Boating culture will take hold very strongly.”

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Regal freezes executive salaries, approves bonuses

twilight_atb_12.jpgFor the second time in three years, Regal Entertainment Group, the largest movie theater operator in the country, has frozen the salaries of its top executives.

But don’t feel too sorry for the Knoxville-based company’s execs. Regal’s board last week approved healthy six-figure bonuses for the top five officers, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission report filed Wednesday.

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Poll: Holiday shoppers ‘enthusiastic’ but spending less

With the Christmas shopping season entering the stretch run, Consumer Repor112510blackfri26.mc.jpgts’ latest survey offers an interesting look at consumer attitudes.

Half of us are “enthusiastic” about the holiday shopping season, but almost one-third of Americans say they are worse off financially than they were last year, according to the Consumer Reports Holiday Shopping Poll.

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Buffett bullish on economy

In case you missed it, the Oracle of Omaha says the economy is headed in the right direction.

Economy+Leaders.jpg“I am a huge bull on this country,” Warren Buffett,CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said Monday in remarks to the Montana Economic Development Summit. “We will not have a double-dip recession at all. I see our businesses coming back almost across the board.”

Not everyone considers what Buffett says as gospel, but there’s a reason he is one of the world’s richest investors. Actually, there are a bunch of reasons.

Here’s what some others think about Buffett’s comments.

Bloomberg report: Buffett Rules Out Double-Dip Recession Amid Growth

TheStreet: Stop Listening to Warren Buffett: Today’s Outrage

AP report: Buffett, Balmer predict bright economic future

The Daily Reckoning: Buffett Commands

AP Photo: Warren Buffett

Trust me, I’m from the government

Government number crunchers always provide fascinating reading.

Today, for example, the Commerce Department said the GDP from 1998-2007 was on average actually 2.7 percent, or $301.5 billion, higher that we thought.

Higher, that is, “if research and development (R&D) spending was treated as investment in the U.S. national income and product accounts,” according to the the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

So, does that mean if we count R&D spending the recession really wasn’t all that bad?

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Pace of job cuts slows

Companies are still cutting jobs – as evidenced by Hewlett Packard’s announcement Tuesday that it would slash it’s global payroll by 9,000 workers over the next three years — but the pace of layoffs is slowing.

In a report released today, global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. says layoffs have “returned to prerecession levels.”

That’s what passes for good news these days, but at least the economy continues to recover.

In May, U.S. employers said they planned to cut 38,810 jobs, the12th straight month when job cuts were lower than the same month in the previous year, according to the Challenger, Gray report.

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This could be the silver lining

Here’s another reason job creation has been slow — some of Corporate America’s big dogs are sitting on piles of cash waiting to make their move.

Check out this story in the Los Angeles Times that talks about how some of America’s largest corporations — including Memphis-based  FedEx — have come out of the recession with plenty of money in the bank.

The question is when will they start to spend? When they do, we should start seeing improvement in the jobless numbers.