Category Archives: Companies

Toshiba LNG Division Sold to Total SA

Companies,

Unburdening itself from its somewhat risky liquified natural gas venture, Toshiba Corp. completed the sale of Toshiba LNG Corp to oil and gas powerhouse Total SA of France for $15 million. The sale is part of the Japanese firm’s restructuring process.

Technigaz Mark III type LNG membrane inside an LNG carrier. Photo courtesy of Thinfourth


The sale was announced in June when Toshiba realized it would have a hard time profiting from US-produced LNG for Japanese utilities due to the fall of the price of LNG. As it is, the sale to Total SA will still result in a loss for Toshiba of about $847 million for the fiscal year ending in March. Toshiba plans to pay Total about $815 million to take the contracts Toshiba is already committed.


Toshiba’s deal with the US firm to have the rights to process U.S.-produced gas into 2.2 million tons of LNG each year for 20 years beginning in 2019 was brokered back in 2013.
Toshiba’s restructuring comes in the wake of a fraud scandal that came to light in 2015, and after Westinghouse Electric Company, a nuclear power subsidiary, went bankrupt in 2017.

Toys R Us Making a Comeback

Companies,


Former global chief of merchandising and present CEO of Tru Kids Brands, Richard Barry, says he would like to open at least two Toys R Us Stores in the United States in 2019, according to someone who is aware of Barry’s plans.


Last October Tru Kids Brands won the rights to the Toys R Us brand after the company went bankrupt last year. Tru Kids also owns the rights to the company’s other assets such as Babies R Us and Imaginarium.


“We’re definitely coming back in 2019. At minimum two stores. There’s more planned for 2020,” the unnamed person said.


That person added that the new stores will be smaller than the old ones and will be more “experiential.”


“We have significant interest about how to bring the brand back to the US,” Barry explained to CNN Business earlier this year. “We’re working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to bring it to life.”

A Tale of Two Massachusetts Bank Mergers: North Easton Savings Bank and Avidia Bank

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Two banks in Massachusetts—North Easton Savings Bank and Mutual Bank—have recently announced that they will be merging in early 2019.

The two banks both maintain 9 locations in different Massachusetts communities. This merger will allow the banks to combine their resources and expand their services. The banks have announced their commitment towards maintaining a culture of growth and success and have dedicated a website, www.meetyourbetterbank.com, to support clients.

Bank mergers can be complicated and often affect thousands of clients as well as employees.

This was the case when another two Massachusetts banks—Westborough Bank and Hudson Savings Bank—merged in 2007. When their merger was announced in November 2006, the deal seemed straightforward. Hudson parent company Assabet Valley Bancorp would pay $35 per share for Westborough Financial Services Inc. (the mutual holding company for The Westborough Bank), for a total of $20.6 million. The deal eventually went through, and the two banks merged to become Avidia Bank.

But, surprisingly, this deal involved intense negotiations, and did not go to the highest bidder. An offer of $38.50 per share from an unidentified individual was rejected by the bank’s shareholders. Another offer, of $40 per share by Marc Bistricer’s Murchinson, was also turned down.

As these Massachusetts banks demonstrate, bank mergers are complex deals that carry implications for bank personnel, investors, and customers.

America’s Second Trillion Dollar Company Emerges

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Jeff Bezos courtesy of
Steve Jurvetson

Coming just a bit more than one month after Apple became the first US publicly traded company to be valued at over $1 trillion, Amazon takes second place in the race to corporate hugeness.

Amazon entered the rarefied atmosphere of trillion-dollar companies when its stock rose 1.9 percent last Tuesday to a value of $2,050.50 per share, just 23 cents beyond what it needed to reach that magic trillion dollar point. The price of Amazon’s stock has climbed by 70 percent so far this year, continuing to explode along with other US stocks in the tech sector. The milestone was fleeting however, when the stock actually closed up only 1.3 percent, not enough to keep it beyond $1 trillion.

Amazon has been doing quite well lately, pulling past other tech major players such as Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and Microsoft. Alphabet’s valuation stands at about $840.3 billion, and Microsoft’s at $854.5 billion.

In 1994 Jeff Bezos founded Amazon as an on-line bookseller. The company grew quickly to become one of the US’ most influential companies. Based in Seattle, Amazon is a leader in e-commerce, but also is expanding to other markets such as cloud computing, home security and movie production. Only Walmart hires more people, and this year’s profit so far comes to $4.1 billion. Bezos is also the owner of the Washington Post.

Bezos is the world’s richest person. As a the major beneficiary of the skyrocketing stock price, as of Tuesday, Bezos’ worth is estimated to be $166 billion.

Hain Celestial Group Reaching for the Stars with New Leadership

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The Hain Celestial Group, Inc, makers of Celestial Seasonings tea, Rudi’s Organic Bread;

Courtesy of Flickr

and many other products in the healthy eating niche, is about to name a new leader.

Its been two months since founder Irwin D. Simon announced his intention to leave is post as president and chief executive officer, and now he said that the board and he are about to complete the process of choosing the person who will take his place.

“I am confident now is the right time for a next generation of leadership, and I firmly believe that some of our greatest opportunities definitely lie ahead,” Mr. Simon said.

The first task of the new president will be to bring back growth to the US division, which the company is presently in the process of “proactively reshaping,” according to Gary W. Tickle, CEO of North America. The company has been, and will continue to cut back on its product portfolio to better focus on and invest in its basic 11 brands and top 500 stock-

keeping units in the USA.

“In 2018, we achieved incremental progress in certain areas of our business from our planned growth investments,” Mr. Tickle said. “Although in total, results for the fourth quarter were below our expectations, we’ve seen positive momentum building in our outlook on core distribution from our most recent round of customer line reviews. We already have confirmed 49,000 net new points of distribution for seven of our top brands across a broad range of retailers and channels. These transformation efforts take time to show tangible results, but these initiatives are translating into improvements in our measured channel numbers.”