Considering that 2009 was a nightmare for most southeastern Wisconsin companies, you wouldn’t know it by the performance of the stocks of the publicly traded corporations in the region.
The common stocks for all but nine of the 34 publicly held local companies in the BizTimes Stock Index posted gains in 2009.
The index measures the cumulative value of the stocks of publicly traded companies based in southeastern Wisconsin. The index closed out the year near its 52-week high and has continued to climb in January.
The index may be a harbinger of economic growth to come for the region.
Of the top 10 largest local gainers for the year, seven were manufacturers: Bucyrus International Inc.; Merge Technologies Inc.; Modine Manufacturing Inc.; Joy Global Inc.; Johnson Outdoors Inc.; Twin Disc Inc.; and Johnson Controls Inc.
Most notable was the performance of Bucyrus International and Joy Global in 2009. Their growth is transforming Milwaukee into the mining equipment manufacturing capital of the world. Bucyrus International’s stock gained 204.37 percent in 2009, while Joy Global’s stock jumped 125.29 percent.
Bucyrus International chief executive officer Tim Sullivan recently announced the company plans to create 400 to 500 new jobs in metro Milwaukee after it acquires the mining equipment business of Terex Corp.
Bucyrus announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Terex division for $1.3 billion in cash. The transaction, expected to close by the end of February, will create the world’s largest supplier of mining equipment.
Bucyrus currently has about 1,500 employees in southeastern Wisconsin.
“We are extremely excited about acquiring Terex Mining, and we believe that this is a unique opportunity to build an even stronger company for our customers, employees and shareholders,” Sullivan said. “Customers will reap benefits from this transaction as Bucyrus will be able to offer a broad, complementary product line that is driven by technology, quality, and first-class service.”
About half of the new Bucyrus jobs in the Milwaukee area will be in manufacturing, with the balance in engineering and management positions, Sullivan said.
Bucyrus’ facility in South Milwaukee is the company’s global headquarters, and Terex’s mining division management also will be housed there in the future, Sullivan said. The company is now negotiating to bring many of Terex’s managers to the Milwaukee area.
With the acquisition of Terex’s mining equipment, Bucyrus will offer a comprehensive product portfolio comprised of walking draglines, electric rope shovels, hydraulic excavators, off-the-highway haul trucks, highwall miners, underground longwall, room and pillar and transport machinery and a full line of drills and belt systems for all mining applications.
Milwaukee-based Joy Global grew its net sales in 2009 to $3.6 billion.
“We continued to deliver exceptional performance in our fourth quarter, and finished our fiscal year with record revenues, earnings, and profitability,” said Mike Sutherlin, president and chief executive officer. “In addition, our process improvement efforts have delivered the second consecutive quarter of reduced inventory levels. With the help of higher profits and lower inventories, cash from operations was strong despite reduced customer deposits, and we finished the year with substantially lower net debt. We delivered performance that was exceptional and balanced, and we enter next year a much stronger company with more efficient processes, a healthy balance sheet and improved liquidity.”
