“Elkhart union, and workers, are left broken - MSNBC” plus 4 more |
- Elkhart union, and workers, are left broken - MSNBC
- Restoring cars restores teens - Jackson Sun
- A walkout ends, and strikers find a changed world - The Guardian
- Two killed in separate accidents - Deccan Herald
- Clutch Auto: Buy - Hindu Business Line
| Elkhart union, and workers, are left broken - MSNBC Posted: 18 Oct 2009 02:00 PM PDT By 10:30 a.m. the lot fronting Disabled American Veterans Post 19 is nearly full and a table spread with potato salad and Port-a-Pit chicken beckons. The only thing missing, mutters one of the workers, is a banner: "Welcome to Our Last Supper." This gathering marks the end of a 40-month fight over who owns the craftsmanship that gives life to a factory floor. These men and women have logged decades making trumpets of such sinuous precision they are called the Stradivarius of brass. In the end, though, there is no music. "Lord God, you know what the plan is for our lives," Bertha Carpenter prays as fellow workers bow their heads. "And let us be ever grateful." This is the story of a decision — of 234 workers, one company and countless consequences. Back when times were good, many Americans made decisions that seemed like sure things. Millions gambled their homes, betting prices could only go up. Others bet their retirement security on the stock market. But workers at the Vincent Bach factory bet on what seemed more modest expectations. When they walked out on strike, they had no get-rich-quick illusions. At best, the thinking went, if they stuck together they'd keep hold of their prized rung on the economic ladder. Today that bet is being called. But like Rip Van Winkle, who fell asleep for 20 years and came back to a place he barely recognized, the men and women of Bach return to a vastly different landscape than the one they left behind. A poster child Millions across the country lost jobs, but Elkhart was slammed by the nation's largest jump in unemployment. Many of the factories that made it the capital of recreational vehicle manufacturing shut down. Twice since election, President Obama has come to Elkhart County to spotlight economic despair. But this story begins in a very different Elkhart, singled out by a Federal Reserve economist in 2006 as one of the Midwest's "jewels in the rust." Unemployment then hovered just above 4 percent and the RV plants were hiring. But at the Bach factory there was little talk of going elsewhere for a paycheck. The place was like a big family, workers say, and it's no exaggeration. Stacy Curtis followed her dad in to Bach, where she met husband, Steve, one of the buffers blanketed in red dust her father supervised. Brad Milliken hired in as a janitor at 17 when his dad put the good word in, then did the same for younger brother, John. Job openings at Bach were guarded like secrets. In a town with 45 percent of all jobs in factories, Bach paid near the top. The average worker made $21 an hour. But the family sensibility went beyond the paychecks. On Fridays, workers circled around covered-dish lunches on the shop floor. On birthdays, they serenaded each other on whatever instrument was within reach. Bach was equally bound by pride. In the music world, Vincent Bach is synonymous with cornets, trombones and, especially, trumpets. "Once you got done with an instrument," Jeff Hoogenboom says, "it was like a jewel." That pride reached back to the 1920s when the original Bach, an Austrian immigrant, set up shop in New York. He was so certain of his trumpets' superiority he named them for the world's most legendary instrument. Bach sold his company in 1961. The new owner moved it to Elkhart, which, by the 1970s, supplied 40 percent of the world's band instruments. But the company and the world around it began to change. In 1993, two investment bankers acquired Bach's parent firm, then merged it with famed piano maker Steinway & Sons, creating the nation's largest musical instrument manufacturer. The new owners pushed to speed production. They eliminated the plant's saxophone line. The company earned $13.8 million in 2005. But executives were wary of Chinese producers, whose $200 trumpets targeted the large student market. The company would not comment for this story, but its demands were clear. On the final day of their contract in March 2006, every worker received a letter from president John Stoner. Bach was losing money on student instruments. An Asian manufacturer could take over for a fraction of the cost. This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| Restoring cars restores teens - Jackson Sun Posted: 18 Oct 2009 01:31 PM PDT (3 of 3) Antonio said he now has a new goal. First, he said, he will graduate from high school this year and then go to a four-year college and get an engineering technology degree. Ultimately, he wants to "work with his hands" doing much of the skilled auto body work he is learning at Maaco, and then open his own business. He attributes his new outlook to the environment of positive "cool" mentors and learning new skills that he can use for his future. Kelvin Bennett, a mentor in the program, said it is possible for a troubled teen to transform his life, because he's a living example. "I see myself in these kids," Bennett said. "I wasn't always where I am right now. I know you can be turned around, and you need the support of people around you. Many see the fruits of these kids' crime, but don't see the broken home or abuse behind it." Operation Turnaround projects give children a sense of belonging and accomplishment, Bennett said. "They want to be a part of something and feel like they're needed, and they can benefit from this project," Bennett said. "This can give them something to look forward to, and they can say 'I can do something."' Patricia Gurley, a parent who has two teenage sons in the Operation Turnaround program, said Project 59 is a wonderful project. "I'm glad they're a part of this," Gurley said as she watched them work on the car. "This is a beat-up car, and they are taking it through a transformation. I hope they see they are going through a transformation and change their lives for the better and give back what was given to them." Gurley praised the Operation Turnaround program for providing a positive influence on youths. "It keeps them busy and out of trouble," she said. Officer Tony Marshall, supervisor of Operation Turnaround, said the program is continuing to grow with support from police, volunteers and the community. "We cry about a juvenile problem in our city, and everyone is so quick to blame juveniles for their conduct, but Operation Turnaround has proven if we revert back to the basics of loving our children and giving them the time they need to develop, we wouldn't have everyone complaining when it comes to juveniles." Marshall said with more support from parents, local business and everyone else, the program will continue to thrive. "It shows the level where we started and where we are now, shows the level of progression, the level of commitment the public has afforded us the opportunity to advance ... we can visibly see that here. Information from: The Leaf-Chronicle, http://www.theleafchronicle.com This content has passed through fivefilters.org.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| A walkout ends, and strikers find a changed world - The Guardian Posted: 18 Oct 2009 02:21 PM PDT ADAM GELLER AP National Writer= ELKHART, Ind. (AP) â€" By 10:30 a.m., the lot at Disabled American Veterans Post 19 is nearly full, and a table spread with potato salad and Port-a-Pit chicken beckons. The only thing missing is a banner, mutters one of the workers inside the rental hall to another: "Welcome to Our Last Supper." This is a gathering to mark the end of a 40-month fight over who owns the craftsmanship that gives life to a factory floor. These men and women logged decades pressing, soldering and buffing â€" making trombones and trumpets of such sinuous precision they are called the Stradivarius of brass. In the end, though, there is no music. "Lord God, you know what the plan is for our lives," Bertha Carpenter prays as fellow workers bow their heads. "And let us be ever grateful." This is the story of a decision â€" of 234 workers, one company and countless consequences. Back when times were good, many Americans made decisions that seemed like sure things. Millions of families gambled their homes, betting prices could only go up. Others bet their retirement security, banking on the stock market. But workers at the Vincent Bach factory bet on what seemed like much more modest expectations. When they walked out on strike, they had no get-rich-quick illusions. At best, the thinking went, if they stuck together they'd keep hold of their prized rung on the economic ladder. They bet their jobs on it. Today that bet is being called. But like Rip Van Winkle, who fell asleep for 20 years and came back to a place he barely recognized, the men and women of Bach return to a vastly different landscape than the one they left behind. And from here, there is no going back. --- There's a good chance you've heard of Elkhart. Over the last year, the city of 52,000 along the St. Joseph River gained notoriety even the most desperate chamber official would never have dreamed up: It became a poster child for the recession. Millions across the country lost jobs, but Elkhart was slammed by the nation's largest jump in unemployment. By this spring, one in five workers were out of a paycheck. Many of the factories that made it the capital of recreational vehicle manufacturing shut down. Twice during his campaign and twice since, Barack Obama came to Elkhart County to spotlight the nation's economic despair. But this story begins in a very different Elkhart, one that can be hard to remember. Back in 2006, that Elkhart was singled out by a Federal Reserve economist as one of the Midwest's "jewels in the rust." Unemployment hovered just above 4 percent. The RV plants were hiring and the money was good. Times were so good, Stacy Curtis recalls, that you couldn't walk into a restaurant on a Friday night and not expect to wait half an hour for a table. The Elkhart Truth printed columns of want ads. But on the floor of the Bach factory there was little, if any, talk of going elsewhere for a paycheck. Bach, a squat cinderblock building set back from Industrial Parkway's elbow-shaped bend, looked like just another factory. But two things made it a special place to work â€" the interlocking relationships of the people inside and the nearly timeless craft they practiced. The place was like a big family, workers say, and it's no exaggeration. Stacy Curtis followed her dad in to Bach, where she met husband, Steve, one of the buffers blanketed in red dust her father supervised. Brad Milliken hired in as a janitor and night watchman at 17 when his dad put the good word in, then did the same for younger brother, John, after he got a promotion. Job openings at Bach were guarded like secrets, not least because of the pay. In a town where 45 percent of all jobs were in factories, Bach paid near the top. By 2006, the average worker made $21 an hour. But the family sensibility went beyond the paychecks. On Fridays, workers circled around covered-dish lunches on the shop floor. On birthdays, they serenaded each other on whatever instrument was within reach. They took up collections for retiring workers, who were presented with bud vases made from a trombone mouthpiece. Bach was equally bound by pride. Others factories could build cars or computers to spec. But how many of those workers could call themselves craftsmen? In the music world, Vincent Bach is synonymous with cornets, trombones and, especially, trumpets. Bach made horns for all wallets, but the showpieces were its Stradivarius trumpets: gleaming, curvaceous beauties commanding $2,500 or more from orchestral professionals. "Once you got done with an instrument," Jeff Hoogenboom says, "it was like a jewel." That pride reached back to the 1920s when the original Bach, an Austrian immigrant, set up shop in New York. He was so certain of his trumpets' superiority he named them for the world's most legendary instrument. "The Stradivarius Model C trumpet is the finest C trumpet ever produced," Bach's first catalog boasted in 1926. It "has a bright brilliant tone which strikes through the fortissimo playing orchestra like lightning through the dark sky." Bach sold his company in 1961. The new owner moved it to Elkhart, the center of the trumpet and tuba trade long before it became the RV capital. By the 1970s, Elkhart factories supplied 40 percent of the world's band instruments. At the new plant, work went on much as it always had â€" sheets of brass pressed one at a time, bells shaped on mandrills inherited from Bach himself. But the company and the world around it began to change. In 1993, two investment bankers who'd previously worked for junk bond king Michael Milken acquired Bach's parent firm in a leveraged buyout. Two years later, they bought famed piano maker Steinway & Sons and merged the businesses under the Steinway name, creating the nation's largest musical instrument manufacturer. The new owners pushed to speed production. They eliminated the plant's saxophone line, cutting the union work force from 450 to 234. The company was making money, earning $13.8 million in 2005. But executives were wary of Chinese producers, whose $200 trumpets targeted the large student market. The message was clear in "town meetings" president John Stoner called on one of the plant's loading docks: Change was not a choice. Stoner infuriated some workers, worker Dave Barany says, telling them: "We have the equipment. We own your skills." The company would not comment for this story, but its demands were clear. On the final day of their contract in March 2006, every worker returned home to find a letter from Stoner. Bach was losing money on its student instruments. An Asian manufacturer was offering to take over for a fraction of the cost. "This opportunity for dramatic savings has created a dilemma â€" for me personally and the Company," Stoner wrote. "If we outsource the student line instruments, it will only be a matter of time before the step up and pro lines are similarly affected. So while I would prefer to keep work and jobs at Bach, we cannot and will not do so if it means we produce instruments at a loss." The company demanded cuts that would drop average pay $6 an hour. Workers would pay more for health insurance and overtime would be mandatory, a requirement some called a "family killer." On a Saturday morning â€" April 1, 2006 â€" workers gathered to respond. "We hollered and hollered and said, 'Hell, yeah,'" Stacy Curtis says. The vote was 185-37. The strike was on. --- The first night on the picket line an icy wind whipped down Industrial Parkway. Strikers huddled around burn barrels. But the mood was upbeat and more than a little ornery. In a shop where even the youngest had 10 or 15 years in, most recalled the only other recent strike â€" a walkout in the early 1990s that lasted just eight days. Back then, Stacy Curtis' dad, a supervisor who remained in the plant, would open the door and wave to her on the picket line. This time would be different, they knew. Friends in management had warned workers to be prepared, to salt away their cash. "We know exactly where the pressure points are on the union. They know where they are on us," Steinway CEO Dana Messina told Wall Street analysts soon after the strike began. Many jobs in the plant took months to learn and left supervisors struggling. Without them, workers joked, the company would be reduced to selling inferior "musically shaped objects." If the company didn't value them, they'd take their skills somewhere else. "We were craftsmen," says Jerry Stayton, then the president of United Auto Workers Local 364, which represented the workers. Some workers thought the strike might end in as little as two weeks. "If we're out here two months, I'll be surprised," Stacy Curtis told herself. A few days after the strike began, the company flag went missing from atop the pole and a Chinese flag flapped in its place. The company dialed the police â€" the first of 314 times they'd be called in. But police would not resolve the strike. Workers built plywood sheds along the right of way. They rotated in for picket duty around the clock, bringing along children in their pickups, gathering around TVs powered off generators, holding fish fries. After 32 years at the plant, John Milliken felt almost giddy. Now the trumpet assembler had mornings to savor breakfast with his wife and daughter. He joked with his brother on the picket line. Co-workers kidded him when he showed up on a bike. But Milliken marveled at the smell of the lilacs along the route and the weight he was taking off from the exercise. In early June, negotiators came back with an offer including buyouts, but it was rejected by all but four workers. Ten days later, the company announced it was hiring replacements. A fight broke out between strikers and a car full of men come to claim their jobs. Stacy Curtis had a friend teach her to swear in Spanish so she could yell in two languages at replacements headed in to the plant. Then, with tensions rising, the two sides grasped at compromise â€" one many workers now say was probably the best chance to end the strike. The offer called for workers to return at wages capped at $21 an hour, along with pricier insurance and mandatory overtime. "We should accept this and live to fight another day," Stayton, the union president, told workers from a microphone at the front of the DAV hall. The sticking point was the workers who had taken their place. Company negotiators said they'd be let go, but few believed them. "Get it in writing! Get it in writing!" strikers shouted. A few minutes later, they voted the contract down. Midway through it's fifth month, the strike was no closer to resolution than the day it had begun. --- Criticism of the strike was growing and it wasn't confined to the letters to the editor in the paper. It was hard enough for Stacy Curtis to talk about the strike with her father, the career nonunion manager. But the couple hadn't expected it would be so difficult to justify it to their son, an Army recruiter, and their daughter in the Air Force. "The girl just asked me today, 'Why are you all still talking about this?'" Stacy says. "I said 'Stephanie, you just don't understand.'" It wasn't any easier for Tim Heminger, an instrument assembler with more than 18 years at the plant. Heminger, who drove in from a conservative Michigan farming community, was caught off guard when his minister began lectured him on the wrongness of the union. "My blood pressure rose up," Heminger says. "I finally said you know we need to change the subject or I'm going to say something I'm going to regret saying." At weekly meetings, the union handed out $200 strike pay checks. It also picked up workers' health insurance â€" a critical safety net on Labor Day when Steve Curtis' heart gave out on the picket line. But for workers who'd expected the walkout to last weeks, money was growing tight. Stayton, who'd long worked a second job, took on more hours at Star Tire, fueling criticism from fellow strikers that he wasn't giving enough time to leading the local. In January, Brad Milliken found a job sweeping floors at a cargo trailer factory. But the place was dirty and the work was hard. Brad was a good 20 years older than most other workers. Some called him the "retiree" â€" sticking an expletive in front to make clear they meant no respect. The strike was a year old and John Milliken could see his brother was unhappy. He had no idea. On April 10, the brothers â€" longtime fans of Notre Dame women's basketball â€" joined a crowd of 400 for the team's annual banquet and took their seats. Brad turned to John. "I don't want to make you get sick here," he said. John looked at his brother, confused, waiting for an explanation. "I'm going back in," Brad said. Brad Milliken was hardly the first. For months a small but steady trickle of workers had been crossing the picket line and returning to their jobs, winning scorn from strikers left behind. Milliken was "Scab No. 37." John understood Brad's reasons. He still loved his brother. But that didn't make the decision easy to stomach. Brad had long enjoyed a friendship with Stoner, the company president. The younger Milliken, though, was increasingly furious at management for ruining the plant and the lives of its workers. "Thugs," he called them. He'd never go back. Brad returned to find parts for 1,200 Stradivarius trumpets stacked up, waiting to be assembled. Meanwhile, at the Curtis house, Stacy and Steve examined their expenses. NASCAR tickets would have to go. So would vacations and dinners out. They canceled rental of their weekend spot on a Michigan lake, sold the golf cart and the camper. "The running joke was that we were all going to live in strike sheds," Stacy Curtis says. Thanks to a judge's injunction, workers were restricted in the numbers they could deploy to the picket lines. The strike settled into a holding pattern. The peace didn't last. Replacement workers called the National Labor Relations Board. With the strike entering its 19th month, a vote was set on whether the union would continue to represent plant workers. But the calculus had shifted. Strikers lined up to vote. But so did replacement workers, inside the plant. When some strikers reached the table they were told their vote might not count because their jobs had been taken. Workers' anger was also finding another target â€" the union itself, which they blamed for poor representation and counsel. At the same time, the company was learning to live without the strikers. Steve Curtis found work at E.K. Blessing Co.â€" one of a handful of instrument makers left in town â€" then discovered his new employer had a contract from Bach to make trumpets. He was assigned to other work, but it left him uncomfortable. Then again, at least he had a job. --- Early on, work after Bach was relatively easy to come by. But by the summer of 2008, Elkhart's strength â€" the RV factories â€" was turning in to a painful weakness. Families had once road-tripped to Elkhart to choose a customized home on wheels. But the recession was taking hold and as consumers cut back, they crossed RVs off their lists. Lenders cut credit to manufacturers. Dealers slashed orders. Plant after plant â€" Odyssey Group, Pilgrim International, Monaco Coach â€" sent workers home and shut down lines. In months, unemployment doubled. By this spring, the area jobless rate reached 18.9 percent. Within Elkhart, it neared 21 percent. John Milliken was certain: The strike was long beyond resolving. When he got an offer to be a custodian at Northridge High School, he was grateful. At $13 an hour, it paid much less than Bach. But benefits were generous. After the plant's swelter, the school's air conditioning was wonderful. For the first time in years, he felt like the people he worked for accorded him respect. Steve Curtis, laid off from another horn maker, grabbed a friend's offer for 20 hours a week in his instrument repair shop. But the odd jobs that had kept third-generation bellmaker Steve Kiefer afloat vanished. When his 1988 pickup broke down, he couldn't afford to fix it. He fell behind on his mortgage and began thinking it might be better to let the bank have the place. On the strike's third anniversary, workers gathered at the pavilion in Elkhart's McNaughton Park. Too much time had passed for a rally. They called it a reunion. But between the speeches, talk at the tables was full of apprehension. The battle would be decided by the vote. After months of lawyers' arguments, federal inspectors tallied up ballots â€" 113 to get rid of the union, 107 to keep it. But eight ballots â€" enough to swing it either way â€" were still contested and uncounted. On Monday, Aug. 4, strikers were back on the picket line when cell phones began to ring. The ruling was in. The ballots of two strikers â€" James Klein and William Seigler â€" would not be counted because they had been replaced. After three years, four months and four days, there was nowhere to go but home. "It's over," Stacy Curtis told Steve when she found him at work. "It's over." --- Before the last meal is served, buffers and bellmakers cluster anxiously around a health insurance salesman's table in one corner of the Veteran's hall. Workers with gray hair pull chairs alongside one another and concede they were only a few years from retirement anyway. But for workers in their 40s and 50s, it's not nearly so clear. A few call Brad Milliken: "Hey, can you get me in?" Even that wouldn't turn back the clock. Two weeks after the strike ended, managers summoned workers who crossed the line and cut their pay. Brad, who made $24.50 an hour before the strike, is down to $17. Others see their best chance beyond Elkhart. Deneen Stout, just divorced and with a new associate's degree, figures she'll move away and find a job as a medical assistant. "Don't put any dates or years on your resume," she counsels former co-worker Chuck Miller. "That way they can't date you. I learned that in college." By noon, workers are filtering out, carrying leftover chicken in foam boxes. But Stacy Curtis is not quite ready to call it over. She points her pickup back down Industrial Parkway for the first time in weeks. In front of the Bach plant, she passes the one remaining testament to the past three years â€" a light blue mailbox strikers put up when the picket line became a second home â€" and slows to tally all the empty parking spaces. But now she's seen enough. She gives the F-150 a little gas. Down the street, she's heard, a warehouse is getting ready to open. Maybe they need a worker with experience. She might as well ask. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Two killed in separate accidents - Deccan Herald Posted: 18 Oct 2009 12:55 PM PDT Police said Selva (45), a resident of Suddaguntepalya in Madivala was run over by a private bus on Sunday morning. Selva, who ran a motorbike repair shop in Cubbonpet was crossing the road at about 7.20 am when the accident took place. Though he was rushed to a private hospital, the doctors could not save his life. The pillion rider Gangadhar sustained serious injuries and has been admitted to a private hospital in the City. Two houses burgled In another theft on October 15, thieves burgled a house in Fifth Block, KHB Colony, Koramangala and made away with Rs 60,000 cash and 60 gram jewellry. The theft took place when house owner, Sandeep had gone to Mumbai to celebrate Diwali. Vehicle thieves nabbed In another case, the Basavanagudi police arrested Srinivas of Hosur Road, Vegananda of Bangarpet and Shankar of Prabhu Layout and recovered one auto rickshaw, 11 bikes and two gas cylinders. They had stolen the vehicles from Siddapura, Basavanagudi, Parappana Agrahara, Srinivasapura, Hebbugodi and Sarjapura. Dacoity averted On a tip off, the police surrounded them in Ramadeva Garden. The police recovered lethal weapons and chilli power chits from them. This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| Clutch Auto: Buy - Hindu Business Line Posted: 18 Oct 2009 11:44 AM PDT
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Automobile Components Investment World - Stocks Markets - Recommendation Improving industrial production numbers and thrust on infrastructure projects bode well. Commercial vehicles demand is revving up. S. Hamsini Amritha Given the signs of gradual recovery in the commercial vehicles segment investors with a long-term horizon can consider buying the stock of Clutch Auto at Rs 39.30. Factors such as improving industrial production numbers, thrust on highway and infrastructure projects and orders for new buses under the JNNURM programme, suggest that the recovery in commercial vehicle (CV) sales may sustain over the medium term. Trading at a price-earnings ratio of 11 times, Clutch Auto appears well-placed to ride on the CV revival, given its significant exposure to this segment. Product offeringClutch Auto is India's largest manufacturer and exporter of clutches. Its product portfolio comprises clutch cover assemblies, clutch plates and discs, clutch repair kits, and other related components. With a well-diversified product portfolio, the company caters to CVs, passenger vehicles, tractors and earth movers. Clutch Auto derives about 35 per cent of its revenues from sales to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), 45 per cent from aftermarket sales and the balance 20 per cent from exports. The clutch is the most critical auto component that needs to be replaced frequently in a CV and has a replacement cycle of around 10-12 months, while the clutch cover assembly can be replaced once in four years. Clutch Auto has entered into co-branding agreements with some key customers to strengthen its foothold in the replacement market. Betting on CV The company focuses primarily on heavy-duty clutches for CVs and tractors. This forms 95 per cent of its sales with the balance 5 per cent coming from the passenger car segment. Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, Escorts, Eicher, TAFE and Bajaj Auto are some of the major customers in this segment. Apart from slow revival in medium and heavy commercial vehicle (M&HCV) demand, visible growth in the light commercial vehicles (LCV) segment and tractors may help the company manage growth over the medium term. While M&HCVs registered a decline of nearly 19 per cent between April and September 2009 compared to the corresponding previous period, LCVs have grown by 19.5 per cent. Tractor sales too have risen despite a poor monsoon. Mahindra and Mahindra, a key customer for Clutch Auto that commands a market share of 41 per cent in tractors, saw its tractor sales rise 42 per cent in this period. In the passenger vehicles segment, Maruti Suzuki is the major customer for the company. Replacement demand The replacement market's contribution to the company's total revenues has increased from 25 per cent in 2005-06 to 45 per cent now since they offer better margins compared to the OEM market. Clutch Auto has a strong R&D expertise and technology knowhow which has helped it not only retain and expand its client base but also build a large replacement market. In FY-09, higher sales from replacement demand have helped the company offset the decline in offtake from the OEMs. Reaching out to over 40 destinations, 85 per cent of Clutch Auto's export revenues come from Latin and North America. The acquisition of the clutch division of Pioneer Inc Automotive Products in the US has enabled Clutch Auto expand its presence in the country. The export market is driven mainly by the replacement demand, with Navistar being the major OEM customer. The company plans to increase revenues from exports by 30 per cent by the next fiscal. Financials
From 2003-04 to 2006-07 (the boom period for CVs), Clutch Auto registered a compounded annual sales growth of 25.6 per cent. Sales began to slide from the December quarter of 2007, and due to unfavourable market conditions that prevailed the whole of last fiscal, the company's net sales fell by about 10 per cent, operating profits by 20 per cent and net profits plunged by 63 per cent on the back of higher interest cost and depreciation charges. However, as demand for CVs picked up from the last quarter of 2008-09, Clutch Auto has been posting better numbers. In the first quarter of this fiscal, the company posted a sales growth of 17 per cent, boosting its operating profit by 31 per cent and net profits by 11 per cent. Clutch Auto has improved its product mix to its operating profit margins by about 2 per cent to 15.5 per cent in June 2009. With prices of steel (primary production input) appearing relatively stable for the medium term, the company may not suffer the high input costs that prevailed in the first two quarters of last fiscal. However, the biggest risk to the company's outlook is any delay in the revival of the M&HCV segment. With a market cap of about Rs 62.9 crore, the stock's micro cap status makes it quite vulnerable to market swings. More Stories on : Automobile Components | Stocks | Recommendation
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