When it comes to their own retirement, growing numbers of advisers seem to be looking within their firms for an exit strategy.
Across the country, consulting firms that specialize in brokering, structuring and providing legal advice on deals involving registered investment advisers are seeing more and more firms broadening ownership or facilitating sales to junior partners, according to several consultants who specialize in the space.
Unlike other kinds of mergers and acquisitions that are announced publicly and scrutinized closely, verifiable numbers on RIA transactions are impossible to come by. But anecdotally, consulting firms described internal succession deals as one of the fastest-growing segments of their business.
Top 10 Blue Chip Companies To Buy Right Now: YRC Worldwide Inc.(YRCW)
YRC Worldwide Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides various transportation services worldwide. The company?s YRC National Transportation unit offers a range of services for the transportation of industrial, commercial, and retail goods, such as apparel, appliances, automotive parts, chemicals, food, furniture, glass, machinery, metal, metal products, non-bulk petroleum products, rubber, textiles, wood, and other manufactured products. It serves manufacturing, wholesale, retail, and government customers. As of December 31, 2009, it had 11704 owned tractors, 1239 leased tractors, 50083 owned trailers, and 3244 leased trailers. Its YRC Regional Transportation unit?s service portfolio includes regional delivery, which comprises next-day local area delivery and second-day services, consolidation/distribution services, protect-from-freezing and hazardous materials handling, and various specialized offerings; expedited delivery, that comprises day-definite, hour-definite, and time definite capabilities; inter-regional delivery; cross-border delivery; and operation of my.yrcregional.com and NewPenn.com, which are e-commerce Websites offering online resources to manage transportation activity. The company?s YRC Logistics units? service portfolio consists of distribution services that include flow through and pool distribution, dedicated warehousing, and value-added services; global services, which comprise international freight forwarding, customs brokerage, and value-added services; and transportation services, such as truckload brokerage, domestic freight forwarding, and transportation management. Its YRC Truckload unit provides customized truckload services on regional and national level through the use of company and team-based drivers. The company was founded in 1924 and is headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Roberto Pedone]
One under-$10 trucking player that's starting to trend within range of triggering a big breakout trade is YRC Worldwide (YRCW), which, through its subsidiaries, provides various transportation services primarily in North America.. This stock has been hit hard by the bears over the last three months, with shares off sharply by 50%.
If you take a look at the chart for YRC Worldwide, you'll notice that this stock has been downtrending badly for the last five months, with shares plunging lower from its high of $33.89 to its recent low of $7.06 a share. During that downtrend, shares of YRCW have been making mostly lower highs and lower lows, which is bearish technical price action. That said, shares of YRCW have now started to stabilize and the stock has formed a triple bottom chart pattern over the last month, at $7.06, $7.20 and $7.44 a share. Shares of YRCW have now reversed its downtrend and started to uptrend, with the stock moving higher from $7.06 to its recent high of $10.50 a share. That move has now pushed shares of YRCW within range of triggering a big breakout trade.
Traders should now look for long-biased trades in YRCW if it manages to break out above some near-term overhead resistance levels at $10.63 a share to its 50-day moving average of $10.87 a share with high volume. Look for a sustained move or close above those levels with volume that hits near or above its three-month average volume of 826,789 shares. If that breakout triggers soon, then YRCW will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels $12.38 to $15 a share. Any high-volume move above $15 will then give YRCW a chance to tag $16 to $18 a share.
Traders can look to buy YRCW off weakness to anticipate that breakout and simply use a stop that sits right around some key near-term support levels at $9.20 or at $8.35 a share. One can also buy YRCW off strength once it starts to clear those breakout levels with volume and then simply us
- [By Dan Caplinger]
But one reason why trucking stocks have done so well is that investors are starting to see the potential for consolidation in the industry. Long-beleaguered YRC Worldwide (NASDAQ: YRCW ) apparently made an offer to buy out peer Arkansas Best (NASDAQ: ABFS ) in May, and although Arkansas Best rebuffed the bid, it still points to the efficiency gains that smaller trucking and logistics companies could gain from combining forces.
- [By Sean Williams]
Raise the yellow caution flag
In spite of trucking company YRC Worldwide's (NASDAQ: YRCW ) share price doubling last week following the company's first quarterly profit in six years (that's right...�six years), shares are still down a mind-boggling 99.9928% over the past decade. Somehow avoiding bankruptcy a few years back by diluting existing shareholders into oblivion, YRC has investors now thinking the company may be on the mend. However, its history makes me�believe otherwise. - [By Sean Williams]
Even the trucking companies that have been struggling are showing signs of life. Just last week, Arkansas Best (NASDAQ: ABFS ) announced a tentative agreement between its ABF Freight Systems subsidiary and the Teamsters union that should dramatically lower costs. Just days later, struggling trucker YRC Worldwide (NASDAQ: YRCW ) , which also reported its first quarterly profit in six years recently, confirmed that it's offered a preliminary proposal to acquire Arkansas Best. �
Top 5 US Companies To Buy For 2014: Air Products and Chemicals Inc. (APD)
Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. provides atmospheric gases, process and specialty gases, performance materials, equipment, and services worldwide. The company?s Merchant Gases segment sells atmospheric gases, such as oxygen, nitrogen, and argon; process gases, including hydrogen and helium; and medical and specialty gases for the metal, glass, chemical processing, food processing, healthcare, steel, general manufacturing, and petroleum and natural gas industries. This segment also offers respiratory therapies, home medical equipment, and infusion services primarily in Europe. Its Tonnage Gases segment provides hydrogen, carbon monoxide, nitrogen, oxygen, and syngas to the energy production and refining, chemical, and metallurgical industries; and produces dinitrotoluene used in the manufacture of a precursor of polyurethane foam. The company?s Electronics and Performance Materials segment offers nitrogen trifluoride, silane, arsine, phosphine, white ammonia, silicon tetra fluoride, carbon tetrafluoride, hexafluoromethane, critical etch gases, and tungsten hexafluoride; and tonnage gases, specialty chemicals, and services and equipment for the manufacture of silicon and compound semiconductors, thin film transistor liquid crystal displays, and photovoltaic devices. This segment also provides performance materials for a range of products, including coatings, inks, adhesives, civil engineering, personal care, institutional and industrial cleaning, mining, oil refining, and polyurethanes. Its Equipment and Energy segment designs and manufactures cryogenic equipment for air separation, hydrocarbon recovery and purification, natural gas liquefaction, and helium distribution; and offers plant design, engineering, procurement, and construction management services for the chemical and petrochemical manufacturing, oil and gas recovery and processing, and steel and primary metals processing industries. The company was founded in 1940 and is based in All entown, Pennsylvania.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Rich Duprey]
As mining, metal fabrication, and food industries expand in Chile, the need for industrial gases is growing such that specialty gas maker Air Products� (NYSE: APD ) announced it will build a new facility in Antofagasta as well as�expand the capacity of its Graneros plant south of�Santiago at a cost of more than $15 million.
- [By Cash Flow Investor]
Since then, I've seen the lesson of Royal Dutch Shell play out for other companies. One company I've considered from time to time is Air Products and Chemicals (APD), which shows up on the screens of many dividend growth investors. Looking at the payout ratio as traditionally calculated (i.e., dividend divided by net income), there seems to be sufficient coverage of the dividend:
- [By Vanina Egea]
Some say that specializing in one product is the path to success. Others argue that diversifying is a policy against economic recessions. Time has proved that neither strategy is wrong, and that each one has an expiration date. Here are two chemical companies that started with one product and have eventually diversified: DuPont (DD) and Air Products & Chemicals (APD). Let's take a look into their prospects for the years to come.
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Air Products & Chemicals’ (APD) gain is Rockwood Holdings’ (ROC) loss after Air Products hired away Rockwood’s CEO Seifi Ghasemi to run the chemical company.
REUTERSOppenheimer’s Edward Yang and Luis Amadeo explain why poaching Ghasemi from�Rockwood is good news for Air Products & Chemicals:
Mr. Ghasemi led Rockwood Holdings through its divestiture of seven “non-strategic” businesses (Advanced Ceramics, Clay Additives, TiO2 and four other) for a total enterprise value of ~$3.9B. While his experience in industrial gases was the key consideration, his hiring could signal that Air Products & Chemicals may be open to divestitures, which have been anticipated by activist investors.
Although�Air Products & Chemicals has not expressed intentions to divest any of its businesses, investors have periodically questioned whether or not�Air Products & Chemicals should sell its volatile Electronics business (~17% of sales), which is more cyclical than its core industrial gases business.
As a reminder, Air Products & Chemicals was in the low $90s when activist Bill Ackman told investors in July 2013 that he had taken a major position in a large-cap, investment-grade US corporation. Since then Air Products & Chemicals has closed its valuation gap with Praxair (PX), although restructuring has been limited so far.
The one problem: Air Products & Chemicals valuation. “[Air Products & Chemicals] has generally been at a discount to [Praxair] in the last five years due to its mix and more volatile performance, but closed the gap last year on activist involvement and potential restructuring,” Yang and Amadeo note.�Air Products & Chemicals trades at 21 times 2015 earnings, in line with Airgas’s (ARG) P/E ratio of 21.5 but well above Praxair’s 18.5 times.
Shares of Air Products & Chemicals have jumped 6.8% to $129.97 at 12:03 p.m. tod
Top 5 US Companies To Buy For 2014: The Babcock & Wilcox Co (BWC)
The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W), incorporated on March 8, 2010, is a technology innovator in power generation systems, a specialty constructor of nuclear components and a service provider in its segments. The Company provides a variety of products and services to customers in the power and other steam-using industries, including electric utilities and other power generators, industrial customers in various other industries, and the United States Government. The Company operates in four business segments: Power Generation, Nuclear Operations, Technical Services and Nuclear Energy.
Power Generation
Through Power Generation segment, the Company supplies boilers fired with fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas, or renewable fuels, such as biomass, municipal solid waste and concentrated solar energy. In addition, the Company supplies environmental equipment and components and related services to customers in different regions around the world. The Company designs , engineers, manufactures, supplys, constructs and services utility and industrial power generation systems, including boilers used to generates steam in electric power plants, pulp and paper making, chemical and process applications and other industrial uses.
Power Generation segment specializes in engineering, manufacturing, procurement and erection of equipment used in the power generation industry and various other industries, and the provision of related services, including engineered-to-order services, products and systems for energy conversion worldwide and related auxiliary equipment, such as burners, pulverizers, soot blowers and ash handling systems; heavy-pressure equipment for energy conversion, such as boilers fueled by coal, oil, bitumen, natural gas, municipal solid waste, biomass and other fuels; environmental control systems, including both wet and dry scrubbers for flue gas desulfurization, modules for selective catalytic reduction of the oxides of nitrogen, equipment to capture! particulate matter, such as fabric filter baghouses and wet and dry electrostatic precipitators, and similar devices, and power plant equipment and related heavy mechanical erection services.
The Company supports primarily fossil operating plants with a variety of additional services, including the installation of new systems and replacement parts, engineering services, construction, inspection, maintenance and field technical services, such as condition assessments and inventory services. The Company offers a range of construction services through a wholly owned subsidiary including erection of utility and industrial boiler plants and installations of cogeneration facilities and pollution control equipment, such as selective catalytic reduction systems and flue gas desulfurization scrubbers.
The Company also provides power through cogeneration, refuse-fueled power plants and other independent power-producing facilities. In this market, the Company owns and operates facilities, supply equipment and serve as contractors for engineer-procure-construct services and operations and maintenance.
Nuclear Operations
Through Nuclear Operations segment, the Company engineers , design and manufactures precision naval nuclear components and reactors for the United States Department of Energy (DOE)/National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program.The Company's Nuclear Operations segment specializes in the design and manufacture of close-tolerance and equipment for nuclear applications. In addition, the Company is a manufacturer of critical nuclear components, fuels and assemblies for government and limited commercial uses. The Company also converts or downblend high-enriched uranium into low-enriched fuel for uses in commercial reactors to generate electricity. The Company has also been a provider in the receipt, storage, characterization, dissolution, recovery and purification of a variety of uranium-bearing materials. All phases! of urani! um downblending and uranium recovery are provided at the Company's Lynchburg, Virginia and Erwin, Tennessee sites.
The Company works closely with the DOE-supported nuclear non-proliferation program. This program is assisting in the development of a high-density, low-enriched uranium fuel required for high-enriched uranium test reactor conversions.
Technical Services
Through Technical Services segment, the Company provides various services to the United States Government, including uranium processing, environmental site restoration services and management and operating services for various United States Government-owned facilities. These services are provided to the DOE, including the NNSA, the Office of Nuclear Energy, the Office of Science, the Department of Defense and the Office of Environmental Management.
The Company�� principal operations include managing and operating nuclear production facilities; managing and operating environmental management sites; managing spent nuclear fuel and transuranic waste for the DOE, and providing critical skills and resources for DOE sites.The Company manages and operates complex, high-consequence nuclear and national security operations for the DOE and the NNSA, primarily through its joint ventures. The Company's Technical Services segment's overall activity primarily depends on authorized spending levels of the DOE, NNSA, the Office of Nuclear Energy, the Office of Science, the Department of Defense and the Office of Environmental Management.
Nuclear Energy
Through Nuclear Energy segment, the Company supplies commercial nuclear steam generators and components to nuclear utility customers. In addition, this segment offers a full spectrum of services for steam generators and balance of plant equipment, as well as nondestructive examination and tooling/repair solutions for other plant systems and components. The Company's Nuclear Energy segment fabricates pressure vessels, reactors, stea! m generat! ors, heat exchangers and other auxiliary equipment. This segment also provides specialized engineering and maintenance services and power plant construction. This segment specializes in performing full scope, prototype design work coupled with manufacturing integration. The Company is developing the B&W mPower reactor, a small modular reactor design with the flexibility to provide between 180 megawatts to greater than 1,000 megawatts of electrical power generation (in increments of 180 megawatts) and the capacity to operate for a four year operating cycle without refueling.
The Company competes with Alstom S.A., Doosan Babcock, Babcock Power, Inc., Foster Wheeler AG., Hitachi, Ltd., Bechtel National, Inc., URS Corporation, CH2M Hill, Inc., Fluor Corporation, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc., AREVA Inc., EnergySolutions, Inc. and Northrop Grumman Corporation.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By The Energy Report]
JH: One of the areas where the U.S. for decades has been the leading technological power is in small nuclear reactors. We've used them on our aircraft carriers and on our nuclear submarines safely and efficiently. The U.S. has an advantage in understanding small modular nuclear reactors. One of the companies that we have followed for a long time that's working on that is Babcock & Wilcox Co. (BWC). There's also Fluor Corp. (FLR), which is working on small modular nuclear reactors. President Obama and the Department of Energy are funding research on the implementation of small modular nuclear reactors.
- [By Michael J. Carr]
The Babcock & Wilcox Co. (NYSE: BWC) is a leader in the nuclear power industry. The company makes nuclear reactors for submarines and aircraft carriers, and even with cutbacks in defense spending, it reported a $2.8 billion backlog in that sector. The company also has a backlog of $2.3 billion in its power generation business segment.
- [By Seth Jayson]
Calling all cash flows
When you are trying to buy the market's best stocks, it's worth checking up on your companies' free cash flow once a quarter or so, to see whether it bears any relationship to the net income in the headlines. That's what we do with this series. Today, we're checking in on Babcock & Wilcox (NYSE: BWC ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.
Top 5 US Companies To Buy For 2014: Granite Construction Inc (GVA)
Granite Construction Incorporated (Granite), incorporated on January 24, 1990, is a diversified heavy civil contractors and construction materials producers in the United States. The Company operates in four segments: Construction, Large Project Construction, Construction Materials and Real Estate. The Company operates nationwide, serving both public and private sector clients. Within the public sector, it primarily concentrates on heavy-civil infrastructure projects, including the construction of roads, highways, mass transit facilities, airport infrastructure, bridges, dams and other infrastructure related projects. Within the private sector, it performs site preparation and infrastructure services for residential development, commercial and industrial buildings, and other facilities. The Company owns and leases substantial aggregate reserves and own a number of construction materials processing plants. It also has contractor-owned heavy construction equipment fleets in the United States. In December 2012, it purchased 100% interest of Kenny Construction Company (Kenny).
Construction
Revenue from its Construction segment was approximately 47% of its total revenue during the year ended December 31, 2012. Revenue from its Construction segment is derived from both public and private sector clients. The Construction segment performs various heavy civil construction projects with a large portion of the work focused on new construction and improvement of streets, roads, highways, bridges, site work and other infrastructure projects. These are typically bid-build projects completed within two years.
Large Project Construction
Revenue from its Large Project Construction segment was 41.4% of its total revenue in 2012. The Large Project Construction segment focuses on large, complex infrastructure projects, which typically have a longer duration than its Construction segment work. These projects include major highways, mass transit facilities, bridges, tunn! els, waterway locks and dams, pipelines, canals and airport infrastructure. This segment primarily includes bid-build, design-build and construction management/general contractor contracts. It participates in joint ventures with other construction companies mainly on projects in its Large Project Construction segment. Joint ventures are typically used for large, technically complex projects, including design/build projects, where it is desirable to share risk and resources. Joint venture partners typically provide independently prepared estimates, shared financing and equipment and often bring local knowledge and expertise.
The Company also utilizes the design/build and construction management/general contract methods of project delivery. Under the construction management/general contract method of delivery, it contracts with owners to manage the design phase of the contract with the understanding that it will negotiate a contract on the construction phase when the design nears completion. Revenue from design/build and construction management/general contract projects represented 74.5% of Large Project Construction revenue in 2012.
Construction Materials
Revenue from its Construction Materials segment was 11.1% of its total revenue in 2012. The Construction Materials segment mines and processes aggregates and operates plants that produce construction materials for internal use and for sale to third parties. It has aggregate reserves that it has acquired by ownership in fee or through long-term leases. Aggregate products used in its construction projects represented approximately 42.7% of its tons sold during 2012.
Real Estate
Granite Land Company (GLC) is an investor in a diversified portfolio of land assets and provides real estate services for other Granite operations. GLC�� investment portfolio consists of residential, as well as retail and office site development projects for sale to home and commercial property developers. The range! of its i! nvolvement in an individual project may vary from passive investment to management of land use rights, development, construction, leasing and eventual sale of the project. Generally, GLC has teamed with partners who have local knowledge and expertise in the development of each property. GLC�� investments are located in Washington, California and Texas. Revenue from GLC was 0.2% of its total revenue in 2012.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Louis Navellier]
If we look at the sector using Portfolio Grader, we see that many of the big names in the group like Flour (FLR), Granite Construction (GVA) and KBR incorporated (KBR) are rated ��ell.��The anticipated spending for both government and private industry simply hasn�� materialized, and the companies are not seeing revenue or profit growth.
- [By Wallace Witkowski]
Some of the companies most dependent on government for revenue are Harris Corp. (HRS) �with 80% of revenue government-derived; Granite Construction Inc. (GVA) �with 58%; Flir Systems Inc. (FLIR) �with 54%; and Waste Management Inc. (WM) � and Republic Services Inc. (RSG) �both with 50%, according to Goldman Sachs.
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