LOCAL BUSINESS
Diebold chair’s pay set
Diebold Inc.’s new executive chairman is being paid $70,000 a month, a regulatory filing shows.
Diebold on Wednesday said it will pay Henry D.G. Wallace $70,000 a month — the equivalent of $840,000 annually — until the Green maker of ATMs and security systems hires a new chief executive officer. According to the company report filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, Wallace will not receive any other director-related compensation but will continue to be eligible to receive equity, or stock, grants.
Wallace, a former Ford Motor Co. executive, has been a Diebold board member since 2003.
The Diebold board in January fired Thomas Swidarski, Diebold’s CEO since 2005, saying the company had underperformed. Wallace was named executive chairman and the company said it was launching a global search for a CEO.
TIRE & RUBBER
Factory’s future debated
U.S. farm tire maker Titan is saying “non” to buying Goodyear’s troubled and money-losing French factory where about 1,250 people work. The plant’s union is “crazy” and employees there work just three hours a day, Titan’s top executive said.
News services in France reported that Titan International bluntly told the French government it is not interested in buying the tire factory in Northern France from Akron-based Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. France had approached Titan about taking over the factory, which Goodyear said it intends to permanently close.
“How stupid do you think we are?” Titan Chief Executive Officer Maurice Taylor said in a letter to the French minister for industrial renewal. “I have visited that factory a couple of times. The French workforce gets paid high wages but only works three hours a day. They get one hour for breaks and for lunch, they talk for three and they work for three. I told this to the French union workers to their faces. They told me that’s the French way!
“Titan is going to buy a Chinese tire company or an Indian one, pay less than one euro per hour wage and ship all the tires France needs,” Taylor wrote. “You can keep the so-called workers.”
Goodyear sets financing
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. will sell $750 million of unsecured, eight-year senior notes to fund its frozen U.S. pension plans. Net proceeds not used for pension funding may be used for general corporate purposes, the Akron tire maker said. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services assigned a “B+” issue-level rating to the debt offering. It estimated the net proceeds will be $737 million.
RETAILING
Court battle begins
Two of the nation’s biggest department stores — J.C. Penney and Macy’s — began to duke it out in New York State Supreme Court over the right to sell Martha Stewart merchandise.
The trial centers on whether Macy’s has the exclusive right to sell Martha Stewart-branded products. Martha Stewart, J.C. Penney’s CEO Ron Johnson and Macy’s CEO Terry J. Lundgren could be called to testify.
WALL STREET
Dow falls 108 points
Stocks fell sharply, retreating from multiyear highs, after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting illustrated differing views over continued stimulus.
The Dow Jones industrial average shed 108.13 points, or 0.8 percent, to 13,927.54, with Caterpillar Inc. shares among declining components after the manufacturer of construction and mining equipment reported global sales fell in the first quarter.
Retreating from highs last reached in October 2007, the S&P 500 index shed 18.99 points, or 1.2 percent, to 1,511.95. After closing at a 12-year high Tuesday, the Nasdaq composite index slipped 49.19 points, or 1.5 percent, to 3,164.41. Gold prices fell 1.6 percent to end below $1,600 an ounce. In an economic report, the Labor Department reported that wholesale prices have risen 1.4 percent in the last 12 months.
ENERGY
Fracking in Germany?
Chancellor Angela Merkel left the door open to tapping shale gas in Germany, saying her government will consult with companies and the public to build consensus on exploiting the potential energy source.
Merkel’s government is keen to develop domestic energy sources as it closes nuclear plants by 2022 and shifts to renewable power. While a successful drilling campaign would redraw the energy map across Europe — a continent reliant on Russia for about a quarter of its gas — little headway has been made on fracking in Germany largely due to public opposition on environmental grounds.
Compiled from staff and wire reports