Electrical Marketing's LiveWire

Coleman Cable, Waukegan, Ill., said it has made an unsolicited offer to buy Technology Research Corp. (TRC), Clearwater, Fla., maker of electrical safety products, for $5.50 per share. TRC in turn has adopted a shareholder rights plan “to protect the interests of the company and all its shareholders.”

“We have attempted to engage TRC’s Board of Directors on a number of occasions and we are disappointed that rather than engaging in constructive dialogue with Coleman, TRC’s Board instead adopted a Poison Pill to block a transaction that is clearly friendly to its shareholders,” said Gary Yetman, president and CEO of Coleman in the Coleman release linked below. “Given the historically low trading volume of TRC’s stock, we firmly believe that TRC shareholders will find the certainty of a cash offer — at a premium of 46% to the average closing share price for the 20 trading days before our offer was made public — very attractive.”

Owen Farren, president and chief executive of TRC, said in a TRC release (also linked below), “The Board unanimously believes the adoption of the short-term rights plan is appropriate at this time. The Board will consider this expression of interest consistent with its responsibilities to the Company and all its shareholders.”

The rights plan assigns one right per share of TRC stock for a term of two years with an exercise price of $15 per share if a person or group moves to acquire 15% or more of the company’s stock.

Stay tuned to EM LiveWire for updates.

Coleman Cable release
TRC release

Rockwell Automation, Milwaukee, has agreed to buy Hiprom, a process control and automation systems integrator headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The acquisition accelerates Rockwell Automation’s growth in the Sub-Saharan region of Africa and further expands its work in the global mining and mineral processing market, said Hedwig Maes, president of Rockwell Automation’s Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, in a Rockwell release.

Hiprom’s management and its 100-person workforce will continue under Rockwell’s Systems & Solutions business unit, and will gain direct access to Rockwell’s products and systems.

The acquisition is expected to close during the first calendar quarter of 2011, subject to the approval of regulatory authorities in South Africa.

Rockwell release

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a single (unnamed) trader holds about $3 billion worth of copper in the London Metals Exchange (LME) warehouses, which is 80% to 90% of the copper held in the exchange. Copper prices on the LME reached a new record high of $9,353.50 per metric ton on Tuesday and copper in New York hit a record $4.2705 per pound, rallying along with the stock market.

“J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. recently had a large position in copper, though it is unclear whether the U.S. bank increased its holdings or whether a new player has taken a dominant position,” the Journal said.

This should be an interesting story to follow.

Graybar, St. Louis, announced the appointment of Kathleen Mazzarella to the newly created position of executive vice president and chief operating officer. With this updated title, she will continue in her role overseeing all of sales and marketing.

Graybar announced it will open a new facility in North Canton, Ohio, on Dec. 13, designed to serve customers throughout the Akron-Canton region.

“By combining our current Akron and Canton branches into a larger, more updated facility, we will be able to provide enhanced customer service throughout the region,” said Bob Smith, Graybar’s director,
operations for Ohio and the surrounding areas.

The new Akron facility is located at 3805 Highland Park St. Northwest in North Canton, a central location that provides convenient access to customers across Northeast Ohio. The 37,800-square-foot facility will have a crew of 26 employees led by branch manager Jim Lostoski, a 21-year Graybar veteran.

ABB, Zurich, Switzerland, agreed to acquire the business of Insert Key Solutions (IKS), a privately owned specialist software provider, adding IKS’ solutions to its recently acquired Ventyx software portfolio.

Based in Chadds Ford, Pa., IKS specializes in software solutions for process improvement, increased equipment reliability and operational performance in power generation plants and transmission and distribution networks. The company has an extensive customer base in the thermal and nuclear power sectors, and a staff of 50 people.

ABB plans to retain the IKS team and will place IKS executives in key roles within the Ventyx team responsible for Asset Suite, eSOMS (asset and operations management software), and IKS solutions. Details

Some cities in America have prepared for plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) for years, but the PEV transition will affect much of the U.S. relatively quickly, bringing a dose of opportunity for electrical contractors and distributors. A report released today by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Project Get Ready maps out where the 50 largest cities in the U.S. are in the process of preparing the infrastructure needed to juice up all those batteries.

The leaders include Austin, Texas; Denver; Los Angeles; New York; Orlando, Fla.; Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; Raleigh, N.C.; Seattle; and Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose, Calif.

This article on GreenBiz.com breaks down more cities.
The full report is available from Roland Berger (registration required).

Copper prices hit a new record as relentless Chinese demand and a potential supply shock from Chile highlighted supply concerns, according to Matt Whitaker of The Wall Street Journal.

China, the world’s No. 1 consumer of the red metal, released data showing that industrial output and capital spending were holding steady even though Beijing has recently taken steps to cool investment in real-estate and other sectors. That sent the benchmark futures contract to a record $8,966 a ton in London, the world’s biggest metals trading hub, while copper in Shanghai hit 70,150 yuan, or $10,557.10, a ton.

WSJ story (subscription required)

GE (NYSE: GE), Fairfield, Conn., announced today it will purchase 25,000 electric vehicles by 2015 for its own fleet and through its Capital Fleet Services business – a move the company claims is the largest-ever single electric vehicle commitment.

GE will convert at least half of its 30,000-vehicle global fleet and will partner with fleet customers to deploy a total of 25,000 electric vehicles by 2015. GE will initially purchase 12,000 GM vehicles, beginning with the Chevrolet Volt in 2011, and will add other vehicles as manufacturers expand their electric vehicle portfolios. GE and its partners will use a mix of electric vehicle technologies to meet their respective needs.

“Electric vehicle technology is real and ready for deployment and we are embracing the transformation with partners like GM and our fleet customers,” said GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt. “By electrifying our own fleet, we will accelerate the adoption curve, drive scale, and move electric vehicles from anticipation to action. We make technology that touches every point of the electric vehicle infrastructure and are leading the transformation to a smarter electrical grid.”

GE Release

Copper prices may lead a number of commodities in a rally into the next year due to a combination of growing consumption cutting into available supplies and increased demand from investors looking for a haven amid declining currency values, according to Peter Richardson, chief metals economist with Morgan Stanley Australia Ltd., in an interview with Bloomberg reporter Glenys Sim.

“There is a fundamental aspect to this rally in addition to what’s happening to the U.S. dollar,” Peter Richardson, chief metals economist at Morgan Stanley Australia Ltd., said in an interview. “I rank copper first,” said Richardson, who’s studied metals for almost 20 years. He also backed tin, which touched a record yesterday, and nickel, up 32 percent this year.

Copper has surged this year, trading within 1 percent of a record yesterday, as the global economy recovered from the worst recession since World War II and the dollar fell. Refined-copper output will lag behind demand next year for the first time since 2007, the International Copper Study Group has said.

Copper, used to make pipes and wires, has the “potential to have a structural shortage of supply for longer than any of the other metals,” Richardson said yesterday. There’s been underinvestment in mine capacity over the past decade and a “significant problem” of declining ore quality, he said.

The article further notes that Goldman Sachs Group analysts expect copper to trade at $11,000 per ton in a year.

Bloomberg story