News Briefs - Feb. 24
The Latest Headlines:
- Oil Remains Over $51 a Barrel
- Xtra Corp. Buys Former CitiCapital Trailer-Rental Unit
- DDC, Freightliner to Invest $275 Mln. in Michigan Plant
- Dana Reports 4Q Loss, Cites Higher Steel Prices
- Yellow Transportation Launches Next-Day Service
- Mullen’s Profits Rise for Quarter, Year
- Jobless Claims Rise in Latest Week
- President Bush Names New Chief Economist
- Xtra Corp. Buys Former CitiCapital Trailer-Rental Unit
Oil Remains Over $51 a Barrel
Light sweet crude oil futures for April delivery closed at $51.39 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Thursday, Bloomberg reported.Oil had approached $52 a barrel in intraday Nymex trading before receding slightly, news reports said. Thursday's close was 22 cents over Wednesday's.
Meanwhile Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Al-Naimi told CNBC Thursday that a $40 to $50 per-barrel price “will probably be with us throughout 2005.”
Xtra Corp. Buys Former CitiCapital Trailer-Rental Unit
Xtra Corp. said Feb. 24 it had purchased a trailer-rental business from GE Commercial Finance, a unit of General Electric Co., for an undisclosed sum.The company, whose Xtra Lease subsidiary rents trailers including dry vans, flat beds, and refrigerated units, bought GE’s trailer-rental unit formerly owned by CitiCapital’s Transportation Financial Service Group.
The sale did not involve GE's TIP trailer-leasing unit. CitiCapital sold its truck-financing unit to GE in November for $4.4 billion.
“This acquisition strengthens our ability to respond to customers’ requirements for trailers during a period of tight capacity and contributes to our plans to grow several product lines,” said Bill Franz, Xtra Lease’s chief executive officer.
Xtra Lease said it will equip the over-the-road trailers with tracking devices. Transport Topics
DDC, Freightliner to Invest $275 Mln. in Michigan Plant
Detroit Diesel Corp. and Freightliner LLC said they will invest $275 million in a new engine and assembly plant in Redford, Mich.The plans call for a 3.2-million-square-foot facility that will include a new heavy-duty truck engine line, medium-duty engine assembly and expanded axle assembly, the DaimlerChrysler units said in a statement.
The Redford campus also will house the new headquarters of Freightliner LLC units Sterling Truck Corp. and Western Star Trucks.
The Redford facility is already DDC’s headquarters and home of its manufacturing operations as well as that of Axle Alliance Co., another Freightliner unit. Transport Topics
Dana Reports 4Q Loss, Cites Higher Steel Prices
Heavy-duty component supplier Dana Corp. reported it lost $133 million or 89 cents a share in the fourth quarter, compared with a profit of $68 million or 45 cents a year earlier.Dana attributed the loss in part to higher raw materials costs, including steel, and cited unusual charges due to divesting some aftermarket operations.
The company said it spent $70 million more on steel in 2004 than a year earlier, mostly in the second half of year.
Fourth-quarter revenue climbed $250 million to $2.3 billion. For the full year, Dana earned $82 million or 54 cents a share, compared with $222 million or $1.49 a year earlier. Transport Topics
Yellow Transportation Launches Next-Day Service
Yellow Transportation Inc. said it had successfully launched its next-day service, with a 98% on-time performance record.The next-day deliveries are provided through Yellow Standard Ground service, the company said in a statement.
The initial next-day offering spans an area from Wisconsin through New York and from Michigan to Tennessee, the company said. It said it expects to expand the service based in the initial success.
Yellow Transportation is a subsidiary of Yellow Roadway Corp., which is No. 3 on the Transport Topics 100 listing of U.S. and North American carriers. Transport Topics
Mullen’s Profits Rise for Quarter, Year
Mullen Transportation Inc. reported net income for the fourth quarter of $11.5 million Canadian or 76 cents per share, compared with C$8 million or 53 cents a year earlier.For the full year the company’s net income was C$46.5 million or C$3.10 per share, up from C$32.4 million or C$2.18 a year earlier, Mullen said in a statement.
The Canadian company said the earnings increase was due in part to its acquisition of an oil-drilling company and record drilling in western Canada last year.
Mullen is ranked No. 63 on the Transport Topics 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian trucking companies. Transport Topics
Jobless Claims Rise in Latest Week
The number of Americans filing initial applications for unemployment insurance rose by 9,000 to 312,000 for the week ended Feb. 19, the Labor Department reported Thursday.Claims were forecast to rise to 309,000, Bloomberg reported.
The four-week moving average of claims, a less volatile measure, dropped to 308,750, the lowest since November 2000, from 312,000.
The number of people continuing to collect state jobless benefits fell to 2.65 million in the week ended Feb. 12 from 2.712 million a week earlier. The four-week average of continuing claims decreased to 2.696 million, the lowest since April 2001, from 2.736 million. Transport Topics
President Bush Names New Chief Economist
President Bush has named a new chairman of his Council of Economic Advisors, news reports said Thursday.The president named Princeton University Professor Harvey Rosen as his chief economist, who will succeed Gregory Mankiw, of Harvard University.
Rosen, a current member of the CEA, may return to academic life in the fall, the Wall Street Journal reported.
He is an expert on business taxes and was expected to be involved in the administration’s efforts to simplify the tax code, the Journal said. Transport Topics
