Dow Chemical sells Styron to Bain for $1.63 billion
NEW YORK (AP) -- Dow Chemical sold its Styron plastics division to Bain Capital for $1.63 billion, the company said Tuesday, ending months of circling by Bain and other private equity firms.
For Dow, the deal is a further unloading of debt after a turbulent year and for the markets as a whole, it may signify the start of an uptick in big mergers and acquisitions, which had cooled with the recession.
Other private equity firms such as TPG and Apollo Management were rumored to be in the hunt for Styron, a business with annual sales estimated around $5 billion and 40 facilities worldwide.
Dow put the company up for sale in July at a time when it was aggressively trying to cut costs following a contentious $16.5 billion buyout of specialty chemicals manufacturer Rohm & Haas.
Based in Midland, Mich., Dow has also moved rapidly to reshape itself and focus on specialty chemicals. Dow CEO Andrew Liveris wants to distance the company from the volatility that comes with traditional chemicals sold in massive quantities.
"This transaction is yet another step in our disciplined approach to portfolio management," Liveris said. "We are committed to further focusing our portfolio by shedding non-strategic assets that can no longer compete for growth resources inside the company."
Dow said Tuesday it has an option to receive up to 15 percent of the equity of Styron as part of the sale consideration.
The companies are expecting the deal to close by August, pending regulatory approvals and closing conditions.
The Styron unit makes plastics, rubber and latex.
Domino's profit more than doubles on new recipes
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) -- Domino's Pizza Inc. said Tuesday that its fiscal fourth-quarter profit more than doubled as sales picked up in the U.S. as curious consumers checked out the pizza chain's new recipes.
Its shares gained 59 cents, or 4.6 percent, to $13.33 in premarket trading.
Chairman and CEO David Brandon said traffic increased all of last year and has continued to grow in 2010. Domino's launched an ad campaign in December that criticized the pizza recipes it abandoned in favor of reformulated ones.
Executives have said that the chain decided to start overhauling its recipes more than 18 months ago after mounting criticism from focus groups and on social media sites. The plan appears to be paying off.
Domino's earnings surged to $23.6 million, or 41 cents per share, from $11 million, or 19 cents per share, a year earlier.
Taking out the positive impact of an extra week and other items totaling 11 cents per share, profit was 30 cents per share.
The performance easily beat the 25 cents-per-share estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. These estimates typically remove one-time items.
Sales for the period ended Jan. 3 improved to $462.9 million from $428.2 million, which surpassed analysts' prediction of $437.5 million.
Domestic sales at stores open at least a year grew 1.4 percent on higher traffic, while overseas -- which comprises nearly half of global retail sales -- climbed 3.9 percent.
This sales figure is a key measure of a retailer's performance since it measures results at existing stores rather than newly opened ones.
Full-year profit surged 48 percent to $79.7 million, or $1.38 per share, from $54 million, or 93 cents per share, in the prior year.
Adjusted earnings were 87 cents per share.
Annual revenue fell 2 percent to $1.4 billion from $1.43 billion.
Domino's does not give quarterly or full-year profit outlooks, but did provide some long-term same-store sales forecasts. The pizza chain predicts domestic sales at stores open at least a year will rise 1 percent to 3 percent, with international sales at stores open at least a year up 3 percent to 5 percent.
Quicken looking for more office space in Detroit
DETROIT (AP) -- Online mortgage giant Quicken Loans is looking to move about 500 to 700 additional workers to offices in downtown Detroit.
Spokesman Aaron Emerson says Tuesday that the Livonia-based company is at capacity with the space its renting at the Compuware building near Campus Martius.
He says Quicken wants to consolidate employees from other locations and is looking at space in other downtown buildings. There is no time frame for the move, which will add to a planned 1,700 workers scheduled to move to the Compuware building later this spring.
The company is leasing four floors at Compuware and still plans to build its own headquarters.
Quicken announced in 2007 that it would move to Detroit, but switched gears when the national economy turned south.
Published: Wed, Mar 3, 2010
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