W.R. Grace is jumping onto a wave of global success.
Despite seeing about a $50 million drop in net income for the year, Grace last year opened offices in China and Russia.
Even one of Grace?s subsidiaries has teamed up with a manufacturing company in the Middle East last year.
For the 2006 fiscal year, W.R. Grace saw sales increase about 10 percent, moving up to around $2.83 billion. There was a nearly $50 million drop, however, in the company?s net income. This was attributed to a $32.7 million increase in defense costs for criminal proceedings related to a trail in Montana and a $19 million increase in Chapter 11-related expenses.
“We finished 2006 with consistently good performance from our core operations,” W.R. Grace President and CEO Fred Festa said in a statement. “We are well positioned to continue our growth into 2007.”
The chemical company has expanded into fields like performance chemicals, construction products, discovery sciences, residential building materials, engineered materials, specialty catalysts and packaging and refining technologies since being founded in 1854.
The company actually breaks down into two subdivisions, the Grace Division, a manufacturer of chemical additives and engineered materials based in Columbia, and Grace Performance Chemicals, which is located in Cambridge, Mass. Grace employs more than 6,400 people around the globe in 40 different countries.
T. Rowe Price elects to vote against Laureate merger
Ina letter filed Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, T. Rowe Price decided to “express our opposition to the recently proposed going-private transaction” for the proposed acquisition of Laureate Education Inc. from a group led by its chief executive officer Doug Becker.
The letter, addressed to Laureate?s board of directors, indicates shareholders are not getting proper value for its shares at a proposed buyout price of $60.50. T. Rowe indicated its stance in the letter, stating “it is our opinion that the long-term fair value of Laureate business is significantly above the proposed buyout price.”
T. Rowe believes based on current data, Laureate stock has the opportunity to be worth around $110 per share within the next three years.
As of market close Friday, shares of Laureate traded at $60.27, up 78 cents or 1.31 percent.
? W.R. Grace, Laureate and T. Rowe Price are part of The Examiner Top 10, which follows the stocks of 10 of the largest publicly held companies in the Baltimore region.
The Examiner Top 10
The Examiner Top 10 portfolio began Jan. 3, the first trading day of the year, with the hypothetical purchase of one share in each company.
Name Buy 3-3 close Change
Black & Decker $79.90 $82.86 +$2.96
Constell.Energy $68.70 $77.81 +$9.11
Foundation Coal $31.75 $32.01 +$0.26
Laureate Ed. $48.60 $60.27 +$11.67
Legg Mason $95.00 $99.43 +$4.43
McCormick&Co. $38.52 $37.48 -$1.04
Mercantile Ban. $46.80 $45.98 -$0.82
Sinclair Broad. $10.50 $14.37* +$3.87
T.RowePrice $43.75 $45.85 +$2.10
W.R. Grace $19.80 $23.68 +$3.88
* TRADING NOTES: Sinclair Broadcasting posted a 52-week high on Feb. 26, trading at $15.19 per share.
