by Ron Carleton | Dec 10, 2013
In November 2011, ACCO Brands, a leading manufacturer of office products, and MeadWestvaco Corporation, a leader in packaging, agreed to merge MeadWestvaco’s Consumer & Office Products business into ACCO Brands in a transaction valued at approximately $860...
by Ron Carleton | Dec 28, 2010
Here’s our list of the top 10 topics on the minds of credit professionals in 2010: 10) Risk Management – We’ve written many times this year about risk management, both good and bad. Whether it was BP and operational risk, suppliers dealing with...
by Ron Carleton | Nov 18, 2010
The Terrible Auto Market With the success of the GM IPO, we may be tempted to forget the terrible decade the U.S. auto industry has just completed. Car sales steadily declined from 2000 through 2007, then collapsed in 2008 and 2009 to a level not seen since 1951. ...
by Ron Carleton | May 26, 2010
For the 7th time in 10 years, Wal-Mart is #1 on the Fortune 500 list (in the other 3 years, it was #2). The company is the largest private employer in the U.S. and accounts for 8% of total retail sales in the US. As big box retailers (including Wal-Mart, Target, The...
by Ron Carleton | May 19, 2010
The problems of the last leveraged buyout bubble are still with us. From 2004 through 2007, the U.S. experienced an unprecedented level of LBO activity. That all ended with the collapse of the debt markets in the summer of 2007 (and the disappearance of the debt...
