Kicking off this week’s top news is a report from the National Pronto Association’s Spring Meeting. Help April 30-May 1 in Dallas, Texas, Pronto’s annual Spring Meeting was attended by more than 87 percent of the group’s shareholders. The spring meeting was primarily focused and structured as one-on-one sessions between shareholders and suppliers, whereby the supplier hosted a possibility of 17 sessions over a two-day period. All together, more than 1,000 individual meetings took place. The meeting also featured guest speaker Charlie Fewell and recognition of outgoing Chairman Tim Renehan of Stone Wheel Inc. Yaron Rosenthal, owner of Parts Authority Inc., located in New York, has been named chairman of the board for 2009.
Our exclusive interview with Equus Products’ CEO Ieon Chen was also highly read this week. In the Executive Interview, Chen talks about the future of telematics, the economy and its influence on the DIY market as well as the company’s anticipated milestone of selling 500,000 INNOVA scan tools by the end of this month. On the subject of on-board diagnostics, Chen said, “The future of on-board diagnostics will focus much less on the hardware (telematics or not) and much more on the information-based knowledge and solutions. It will go beyond diagnosing a current problem to predictive diagnostics, which can essentially determine a possible problem before it happens.”
In other news from the manufacturing sector, this week United Components Group reported results of its operations for the first quarter of 2009. For the first quarter, which ended March 31, the company reported revenues of $219.9 million, a decrease of $9.4 million over the year-ago quarter. Net income attributable to UCI for the quarter was $1.6 million, including $2.9 million in special charges, net of tax, including costs related to obtaining new business, reductions in force, defending class action litigation, the establishment of new facilities in China and integration of water pump operations. Excluding these charges, adjusted net income would have been $4.5 million.
In light of the “Cash for Clunkers” debate that is heating up in Washington, Thomas Hobson, president of national distribution group Engine Parts Group Inc., issued an open letter promoting the fact that professional engine rebuilding may offer a simpler, lower-cost way to cut greenhouse gas emissions. “We hear a lot of talk about various ideas to reduce emissions, but policy makers and the public are starting to realize that the rebuilding of older engines may represent one of the fastest, cheapest and least wasteful ways to reduce automobile emissions,” Hobson stated. Hobson noted that while it’s good to address the issue of so many polluting, inefficient cars on the road, “Cash for Clunkers" may not be the best solution. “By professionally rebuilding older engines, making them tighter and more efficient, we’d be able to make the vast fleet of older vehicles consume less fuel and emit less pollution very quickly,” Hobson said.
Last in our round-up of the week’s top news comes word that Ford Motor Co. will invest $550 million to transform its Michigan Assembly Plant into a lean, green and flexible manufacturing complex that will build Ford’s next-generation Focus global small car along with a new battery-electric version of the Focus for the North American market. As part of the retooling, Ford will consolidate its operations from Wayne Assembly Plant. When production launches in 2010, approximately 3,200 employees will be building the new Focus at Michigan Assembly Plant. The plant, one of three Ford North American light truck plants being retooled, formerly produced Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigators SUVs.
