Monday, December 13, 2010

Caterpillar Looks Outside

'Lightning Bolt' Led Caterpillar to Look Outside, reads an article in today's WSJ. Quoting Chief Executive Doug Oberhelman on the recruiting of 6 top officers from outside the company since 2008, "Though sales soared, operating profit declined, partly because (JIT evidently didn't work too well, my comment) parts suppliers couldn't keep up and Caterpillar had to pay premiums to just get enough materials to our plants."

Fortunately, auto makers, etc. were losing top executives, some of which made more talent available to Cat to bring new innovation into the company. These moves have paid off big time, so far, as Caterpillar stock has risen to new highs, closing today at $91+ per share.

A little late for me, as I lost a bundle as CAT stock dropped from the 80's to 20 dollars per share. I suspect that Caterpillar has made a lot of changes that have resulted in a lot of people making a lot of money. Caterpillar managers were making a lot of money from the years 2006-8 while outsiders couldn't understand why their stock was going through the floor. It became obvious there was a lot of deadwood at CAT in management that needed re-kindled. Top management was slow in recognizing the problems.

Completing funding of the museum should now be no problem as large employers and their employees like CAT, OSF, ADM, RLI and Bradley University should be able to come up with the missing funds.

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