Local manufacturers doing well in big picture

When Wachovia announced its quarterly earnings a few months ago and its was billions in the wrong direction, it was an eye-opener and produced some concerns in the community.
It is, after all, one of the nameplate companies here - though we wonder whether that nameplate on the side of the tall, black Broad Street tower will soon bear the name of Wells Fargo instead.
If you want to tell people about Augusta’s manufacturing base, the nameplate companies are the ones you bring up in that conversation to lift their eyebrows.
The economy is very wacky right now, so I went hunting to see how our big-boy manufacturing companies are doing financially:
PROCTER & GAMBLE: P&G has a powder detergent plant in south Augusta. The company released its annual report last week. For 2008, it had earnings of $12.07 billion, that is 14.5 percent higher than 2007. (By the way, 2007 was 13.5 percent better than 2006 and 2006 was 12.7 percent better than 2005. I sense a trend.)
The company had net sales of $83.5 billion during their 2008 fiscal year. Although we marvel at the size of the number, the important point is that it is higher than 2007’s $76.4 billion.
TEXTRON: The company that owns E-Z-GO will release its third-quarter earnings on Thursday, so the last time the company talked earnings was in July.
It had a great spring, bringing in $3.9 billion in revenue, a bump higher than the $3.2 billion it made in the spring of 2007.
When its earnings press releases talk about a backlog in producing Cessna aircraft and Bell helicopters, that means there’s a bunch of work to finish this year. The E-Z-GO area is the industrial sector. “Industrial revenues increased $137 million, primarily due to a favorable foreign exchange impact, higher volume, higher pricing and a benefit from acquisitions.”
INGERSOLL-RAND: The owner of Columbia County’s largest employer, Club Car, told its investors Aug. 1 that its second quarter net revenue was 38 percent higher than in the second quarter of 2007. The big number: $3.08 billion.
For industrial technologies, which is the Club Car part of the company, total revenues in the second quarter increased by approximately 8 percent to $806 million.
JOHN DEERE: In Grovetown, they make small tractors. How have they been doing this year? Net sales of the worldwide equipment operations increased 18 percent for the third quarter and 19 percent for the first nine months. Deere’s equipment divisions reported operating profit of $818 million for the quarter and $2.3 billion for nine months.
The record financial results come from a good global farm market.
KIMBERLY-CLARK: Over in Beech Island, K-C makes diapers and toilet paper. In Dallas, they tally up the score. For its second quarter, net sales increased 11.2 percent to $5 billion, a new quarterly record.
INTERNATIONAL PAPER: We’ll get the latest on IP on Halloween, but don’t expect it to be scary. Its second-quarter 2008 net earnings was $227 million, compared to net earnings of $133 million in the 2008 first quarter and $190 million in the second quarter of 2007. It was the best quarterly results since 2000 despite higher costs of doing business.
BRIDGESTONE: They make radial passenger and light truck tires in Aiken County. In August, the Japanese tiremaker cuts its profit forecast for the year because of higher material costs and a weaker U.S. market.
The company is still expecting to make $602.2 million by the end of the year.

SOON-TO-BE-GONE NAMEPLATE: Castleberry’s Food Co. tells me u2212 through their Bumble Bee Foods marketing folks u2212 that their retirees’ pensions are fine after the sell-off to Hanover Foods.

FLAT ON YOUR BACK: If your company still has money to fly business class after the bear markets bottom out, Delta in the summer of 2009 plans to have its U.S.-to-London business class customers flying on a comfy chair. The cabin will have 40 of these 180-degree full flat beds. Delta is reconfiguring seven of its jets for this perk that we’ve all been waiting for since the first passenger jet was built.