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Johnson Controls Inc. has offered $1.25 billion forthe automotive interiors and electronics business at Visteon Corp., saying the acquisition would expand its presence in China.
Visteon, however, was skeptical of the bid, saying that it was vague and missing important details. The auto parts company also suggested that Johnson Controls, a direct competitor, might be using the offer as a way to drag out Visteon's Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.
Johnson Controls, which builds car interiors, batteries and other components, said Friday it sent a letter to Visteon expressing interest in the acquisition.
"This acquisition would significantly expand our automotive interior technologies and capabilities," Johnson Controls CEO Stephen Roell said in a statement. "Importantly, it would broaden and deepen our global automotive customer relationships."
Visteon acknowledged that it had received the unsolicited offer and that it has sought more information from Johnson in a May 17 letter. The auto parts supplier said the bid was "remains highly conditional and vaguely defined," though it did not specify what information was lacking from the proposal.
"It is unclear at this point whether this proposal holds out any real prospect of enhancing value to Visteon's constituents," the company wrote in a statement.
Johnson Controls, headquartered in Milwaukee, said the acquisition would be a good fit within its automotive parts business. It would also give it a bigger foothold in China, where Visteon is a key a player and where Johnson Controls has 23 joint ventures and 40 manufacturing facilities.
If its bid is successful, Johnson Controls projected that revenue from its auto parts business in China could exceed $7 billion in 2011.
Johnson Controls said it first approached Visteon about buying its interiors and electronics business in January and again on May 7.
The company said it has retained the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen&Katz as well as JPMorgan Securities to help with its bid.
Visteon filed for bankruptcy protection in May 2009, as automakers were slashing production and shuttering factories to cope with reduced demand for new vehicles. Automakers General Motors and Chrysler themselves filed for bankruptcy protection months later.
In April, Visteon posted first-quarter net income of $233 million, sharply improved form the prior-year period. Last week, the judge presiding over its bankruptcy granted the company more time to win support for its reorganization plan.
In its response, Visteon noted that it was at a "critical point" in its bankruptcy proceedings, and that Johnson Controls would benefit by "introducing delay and complexity" into its reorganization. Visteon said it had difficult experiences with Johnson Controls in past deals.
"Exploring a transaction of this size and scope at this time could distract the company from its primary objective of completing the ongoing reorganization process," Visteon said it its statement.
Shares of Johnson Controls rose 45 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $28.13 in afternoon trading Friday.
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TOPEKA, Kan. (May 23, 2010) - Kevin Willis of Shelton, Neb., was selected as the 10th NAPA AUTO PARTS Honorary Crew Member of the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series at the 22nd annual NHRA Summer Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka.
Willis, 55, has owned Willis Repair Shop, a NAPA AutoCare Center in Shelton, since August 2004 after moving from Wolsey, S.D., in 1992.
"We work with the NAPA Auto parts store in Kearney, Neb.," he said. "That's where I purchase all my parts. The relationship has been really good. We started the repair shop new and they were really helpful, and the relationship keeps growing every year."
Willis has been a race fan all his life, he said. "In the early '70s we raced dirt track in a '55 Chevy in Huron, S.D., and drag raced in Stock Eliminator in Marion, S.D.," he said. "Since then I've been following the NHRA circuit, and we've been here to this event the last six years, but we've never raced here ourselves."
As for being named the NAPA Honorary Crew Member, "It's a great honor to do this," he said. "I didn't realize that NAPA had this going on, and last weekend we saw on ESPN that they had the name of the Honorary Crew Member on the NAPA car. It's quite an honor and I really appreciate it. Ron Capps has been doing really well so far. It was great to meet him."
John Randall, general manager for the NAPA Omaha (Neb.) Distribution Center, was on hand to help present the honor to Willis in the Don Schumacher Racing pit area. "We service 123 NAPA AUTO PARTS stores out of NAPA Omaha, so we sent them a nomination form and asked them to nominate a customer for the NAPA Honorary Pit Crew Member program. This year we got 20 nominations from across the states of Nebraska, Iowa, a little bit of South Dakota, a little bit of Kansas and Missouri. That's the kind of territory that we cover.
"Then we got a panel of three guys from the Distribution Center, which included our operations manager Jim Mancl, and Steve Drager and Josh Dumas, to sit in a room to go through the nominations, pick out the top five and then go through a selection process to determine a winner.
"I kind of kept myself out of it so there's no bias at all on the deal. Kevin was selected by those folks. He was nominated by George Quinn, the store manager at the Kearney store, as well as Ryan Johnson. They nominated Kevin based on the type of customer he is. He's a 'blue-and-gold' NAPA customer, and they appreciate him and the business he gives the store."
Willis also commented on NAPA's relationship with NHRA and DSR: "It's a great deal," he said. "The sport is a lot of fun to watch. What stands out to me is that it's so open to spectators and our customers. They're able to get in to see the drivers and the race cars. DSR does a great job with the hospitality area for the NAPA program, and Capps is a great spokesman for NAPA. We've been really fortunate.
"DSR is a fine outfit to be with. I think NAPA headquarters and DSR do a great job putting all this together for our customers. That's what it's all about."
Willis' non-wrenching crew-member duties included escorting the NAPA AUTO PARTS Dodge Funny Car to the staging lanes for Saturday's two qualifying rounds. He then helped retrieve the car at the end of the track after each run.
The side window of the NAPA Dodge sported Willis' name as the NAPA AUTO PARTS Honorary Crew Member this weekend.
He also met and chatted with the entire NAPA Dodge Funny Car crew, was a special guest in the NAPA hospitality area throughout the weekend, received a NAPA team jersey, experienced an up-close-and-personal view of the NAPA crew as the team worked on the car, and enjoyed a private tour of the team transporter and pit area.
NAPA AUTO PARTS distribution centers at each NHRA event during the season have different criteria for choosing the persons who are potential NAPA AUTO PARTS Honorary Crew Members.
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MUMBAI (MarketWatch) -- After being served with a constant dose of unpleasant news over the past few days, investors in Tata Motors will be hoping for a positive surprise when the auto maker reports its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings this Thursday.
India's largest auto maker by revenue is seen reporting a standalone net profit of 9.79 billion rupees ($209 million) for the January-March period, according to an average of estimates in a 12-analyst poll that had individual forecasts ranging from 6.23 billion rupees to 20.32 billion rupees.
Revenue is expected at 113.28 billion rupees. Tata Motors had declared its annual results in the previous fiscal year, but not that for the fourth quarter.
Asia's Week Ahead: Geithner's China trip in focusU.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's trip to Beijing for a meeting on the economy will be a key focus next week. On the agenda will likely be Chinese procurement rules and the Chinese currency. In Japan, traders will be watching to see whether deflation is taking hold.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch expects a strong fourth-quarter operating performance after firm's volumes rose 55% year-on-year (aided by a low comparable base) and 31% quarter-on-quarter.
Profit will also likely be boosted by a one-time gain from firm's sale of a 20% stake in Telco Construction Equipment Co., or Telcon, to Hitachi Construction Machinery Co. (JP:6305 1,710, +16.00, +0.94%) /quotes/comstock/11i!htcmy (HTCMY 0.00, 0.00, 0.00%) for 11.59 billion rupees at the end of March.
Margins, however, could be pressured by a rise in the cost of key inputs such as steel, aluminum and rubber during the quarter. Mumbai-based Alchemy Research tips a decline of 50 basis points quarter-on-quarter.
Tata Motors /quotes/comstock/13*!ttm/quotes/nls/ttm (TTM 22.73, +0.79, +3.60%) , which sells the Indica Vista hatchback, the Indigo Manza sedan, the Safari sports-utility vehicle and the Nano, usually reports consolidated results -- which include the performance of its luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) -- within a month of reporting standalone numbers.
However, limited information available on JLR financials has only a few analysts issuing estimates on consolidated results.
Tata Motors
Brokerage Motilal Oswal estimates volumes at JLR to have grown 57% year-on-year, but to have slipped 10% on a quarterly basis to 51,103 units in the fourth quarter.
"Sequential decline in volumes would lead to Ebitda margin decline of 460 basis points quarter-on-quarter to 5.2% and in recurring loss of 19 million pounds ($27.5 million)," it wrote in a note to clients.
A sharp rebound in JLR sales had helped the auto maker swing to a consolidated net profit of 6.50 billion rupees for the third quarter, compared with a consolidated net loss of 25.99 billion rupees a year earlier.
Some big Nano issues
The results come in the backdrop of problems that the company has been facing with regard to its Nano mini-car. Starting Monday, all owners of the Tata Nano -- which the company started delivering from July last year -- will be contacted over the next few weeks for a free inspection of their car.
The checks are part of the firm's comprehensive investigation into the cause of fires in two Nano cars earlier this year. Touted as the world's cheapest car, the base model of the 624-cubic centimeter, snub-nosed, gasoline-engine Nano costs 123,360 rupees (around $2,652) at showrooms in New Delhi.
"On the basis of the findings of the investigation, conducted by a 20-member internal team and an independent forensic expert, Tata Motors assures all customers that the Tata Nano is a safe car, with a robust design and state-of-the-art components," the company said in a statement late Friday.
Investors may still find some solace in the fact that the inspections do not constitute a recall.
But apart from safety problems, production issues also seem to have gripped the Nano project. Auto-parts vendors for the Nano are being told to cut their supplies by up to half because the company has trimmed its first-year production target for the model, Dow Jones Newswires reported earlier this month, citing executives at three auto-parts companies.
Tata has now asked the vendors to supply parts for 125,000-150,000 Nano cars in the first year of operations at its Sanand factory in Gujarat state. It had previously announced its plan to make 250,000 cars in the first year at the factory, which is likely to be commissioned in the first week of June.
Sharp slide
Since hitting a 52-week high of 882.20 rupees on May 3, Tata Motors' stock has fallen nearly 20% in less than a month after a sequential decline in April sales disappointed investors.
April sales grew more than 52% over last year, but were almost 24% lower than March, fueling worry that domestic sales growth would slow considerably as last year's low-base effect wanes and as interest rates in India move up the ladder.
"In passenger cars, the company continues to lose market share -- utility vehicles down by 14% and cars lower by 15%, month-on-month (for April)," Edelweiss Securities wrote in a recent note.
At the same time, investors are troubled by the potential impact that the debt crisis in Europe could have on the recovery in operations at JLR. Given these concerns, Tata Motors would need to deliver a pretty robust fourth-quarter performance for the stock to recoup some of its recent losses.
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Edward Lewis – AHN Sports Reporter
Topeka, KS, United States (AHN) – Robert Hight continued as the hottest driver in NHRA when he scored his third straight Funny Car win Sunday in the O’Reilly Auto parts NHRA Summer Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka.
While Hight stole the show, Tony Schumacher won the Top Fuel competition and Mike Edwards captured the Pro Stock title.
“Right now what is happening to the Auto Club Ford is stuff you dream about. To win three in a row I’ve only ever won three races in a season and to win three in a row, to come out here and qualify No. 1 win from the pole is tough to do and not many guys do that,” said Hight. “It’s also all about the team. All the variables there are with these fuel cars, clutch discs, tires, traction there so many variables and to run like this and to do a job like we are doing you have to give to the whole team.”
In the final round, Hight held off Jeff Arend for his 17th career victory with a winning pass of 303.50 mph.
In the Top Fuel final, Schumacher went up against Cory McClenathan and it was Schumacher’s run of 310.27 mph that gave him his third win of the season.
“It was a heck of a day,” said Schumacher. “To go out and beat Cory by five-thousandths of a second, Dixon the round before, and Shawn Langdon by eight-thousandths of a second; that’s what racing is about. That’s why you get up in the morning. I say it all the time, it’s not the trophy, it’s getting up Sunday morning and knowing you’re going to have to dig real deep to get it, and we did.”
Edwards tallied his fifth win of the season after he beat Allen Johnson in the finals.
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A well-meaning arrogance dominates, drives, and defines the modern political left. Throughout the West liberals consistently advocate for policies that puma shoes leave government, generally unelected experts and commissions, with more power and average citizens, entrepreneurs and families with fewer choices and less freedom. Europe is quite a bit closer to the consequences of such policymaking, but the Obama Administration is working hard to make up for the time lost by our country in going down that same path of soft socialism.
Conservatives, on the other hand, believe that many choices are best left up to the individual, and to individuals working collectively through free-market based economic systems. Government, no matter who it is run by or how big it may be, cannot determine the specific needs of every individual and develop a targeted solution for every individual’s private cheap puma shoes problem. This is not to say that government should not limit choices in some areas. Moral issues are matters of absolute right and wrong, and failure to enforce a prohibition on making choices that violate morality is an open invitation to anarchy, and freedom cannot function whenever every man is a law unto himself.
Radical environmentalism, and the alarmist rhetoric and shoddy science resulting from it, provide an excellent case-study on the arrogance of liberalism. As the oil continues to spew at a rate of about 210,000 gallons per day out of the broken BP/Deepwater Horizon deep-sea oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, the left is up in arms over the extent of the damage Puma Future 2009 Cat being done to the environment of the Gulf and the southern coastal states. There is significant immediate and mid-term damage being done as the oil washes up on the coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama, and drifts out on the currents threatening the coastal beaches of Florida.
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IF YOU think that neglecting your teeth and gums will lead to nothing worse than a few fillings and bad breath, you are wrong. Poor oral hygiene may put you at higher risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes cheap puma shoes and some cancers.
Researchers from University College London looked at results from more than 11,000 people and found those who never or rarely brush their teeth were 70 per cent more likely to suffer heart disease than those who brush twice a day.
Previous research has shown that people with gum disease are more likely to suffer from heart problems. “A wide range of bacteria are associated with gum disease and if they are not treated they can enter the bloodstream and affect the heart,” says Professor Damien Walmsley of Birmingham University, a scientific adviser to the British Dental Association.
The bacteria stick to fatty deposits in the blood vessels of the heart, making clots more likely to form which in severe cases could lead to a heart attack.
Gum disease may also contribute to the clogging of the arteries that carry blood to the brain. Several studies have found people who have had a stroke are more likely to have had gum inflammation than people who have not.
The good news is that treating gum infections can cut the risk of both heart attack and stroke.
Diabetes
Gum inflammation is one of the most common complications of diabetes. New research has shown that the link works both ways and that gum disease can raise blood sugar levels and possibly cause diabetes.
When bacteria from inflamed gums enter the bloodstream they can activate immune cells that produce inflammatory biological signals called cytokines. These have a destructive effect throughout the body.
“In the pancreas, the cells responsible for insulin production can be damaged or destroyed,” says Anthony puma shoes Iacopino of Marquette University’s School of Dentistry in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. “Once this happens, it may induce Type 2 diabetes.” Professor Walmsley says: “A dentist who sees a rapid onset of gum disease that is out of character with the patient would suggest they have their blood sugar levels checked.”
Unborn babies
In January this year, scientists linked pregnancy-related gum disease to the death of an unborn baby in California.
Bacteria from the woman’s inflamed gums passed through her bloodstream and into the amniotic fluid where it killed her child in the womb.
“The bacteria found in the baby’s lungs and stomach could only have come from gum disease in the mother’s mouth,” says Dr Nigel Carter, chief executive of the British Dental Health Foundation.
“This really does demonstrate what dentists have suspected for some time, that infections in the mouth can cause serious problems elsewhere in the body.”
Chest infections
Bacterial chest infections including pneumonia are thought to be caused by inhaling fine droplets from the throat and mouth into the lungs.
People with gum inflammations have higher levels of bacteria in their mouths and may be more likely to develop chest infections which can be particularly serious in people with lung disease.
Cancer
An American study published in 2007 found that men with periodontal disease had a 63 per cent higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer than those with no gum disease.
“Our study provides the first strong evidence that periodontal disease may increase the risk of pancreatic cancer,” says Dominique Michaud, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Recent research has also suggested a link between severe gum disease and head and neck cancer.
Osteoporosis
Your dentist may soon be able to tell if you have the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis by examining dental X-rays.
Scientists at Manchester University Puma Ferrari Levitation Lace GT have developed special software that can detect more than half of osteoporosis sufferers from X-rays.
At risk patients would then be referred for a definitive DEXA scan.
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Eating food in the middle of the night can seriously damage your teeth, experts warn.
Researchers have puma shoes found midnight snacking ups the risk of tooth loss, regardless of the type of food that is eaten.
The Danish investigators blame changes in saliva flow - it tends to dry up at night.
Enough saliva is important to remove food debris from the mouth, they explain in Eating Behaviours journal.
Night nibbles
Working with colleagues from the US, the team at Copenhagen University cheap puma shoes examined the medical records of 2,217 Danes already enrolled in a medical study.
Of these 173, or 8%, could be classed as nocturnal eaters - meaning they consumed a quarter or more of their daily calories after dinner or would wake up in the middle of the night at least twice a week for a little moonlight snack.
Continue reading the main story
Eating at night, when the mouth is driest and any food remains in the mouth longer, accentuates the impact of consuming sugary and acidic food and drinks
Professor Damien Walmsley Scientific adviser to the British Dental Association
When the researchers tracked what happened to all of the study participants over a period of six years, a significant finding emerged.
The nocturnal eaters ended up losing more teeth, even after accounting for other factors such as age, smoking and sugar/carbohydrate consumption.
While dentists may not be able to stop their patients feasting in the middle of the night, Dr Jennifer Lundgren and colleagues say they should make them aware of the associated risks.
"Practitioners Puma Furio V
Professor Damien Walmsley, scientific adviser to the British Dental Association, said: "Eating at night, when the mouth is driest and any food remains in the mouth longer, accentuates the impact of consuming sugary and acidic food and drinks.
"To minimise damage, it is important to brush teeth twice a day with fluoride toothpaste, with one of those brushes coming immediately before bedtime.
"Where possible, consume only water for at least an hour before the final brush of the day."
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