Agenda: Clariant, Kaisa, Volvo, BRP, Toyota.
Photo: Plastics Today
Growth strategy for Clariant. Clariant, a Swiss-based company, aims to invest almost 30% of its investment in China. According to Yahoo Finance, the company, which manufactures both runway de-icing products and additives for paints or ingredients for cosmetics, aims to increase its sales by around 4 to 6% per year. The targeted year is 2025. To achieve this ambitious target, the company is considering setting up an aggressive sales force and is not ruling out the option of forming partnerships or making acquisitions to better serve the markets.
Kaisa returns to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. According to CNBC, Chinese company Kaisa has received permission from authorities to return to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company was previously suspended from the stock market for a period of three weeks while it negotiated a settlement with its creditors. Kaisa is in a similar situation as the Chinese group Evergrande with a very large debt to manage. In recent weeks the Kaisa company has been unable to meet the chancers for the payment of its debts.
Lower sales for Volvo. According to Yahoo Finance, car maker Volvo reports that its most recent quarter has been negatively affected given global issues related to semiconductor supply shortages. This problem related to supply shortages has notably reduced Volvo sales by around 17%. The geographic regions where Volvo's sales were most affected were China and Europe. Volvo is confident that once the supply issues are resolved, its sales will pick up.
Photo: BRP
Revenues down for BRP in the last quarter. According to La Presse, Bombardier Recreational Products from Valcourt in Quebec mentioned that for the last quarter, its profit is down compared to the same quarter a year earlier. Indeed, for this period the revenues were 1.60 billion whereas a year earlier they were 1.68 billion. BRP mentions that an important factor related to this drop in revenue is linked to a reduction and a delay in deliveries of products essential for the BRP production chain, and that these delivery delays are associated with supply chain disruptions that many companies around the world are having to contend with the problems caused by the COVID-19 crisis.
Toyota is targeting 2035 for its electric or hydrogen cars. The world's largest vehicle manufacturer, Toyota, announces a very ambitious target. According to BNN Bloomberg, the company aims to market only electric or hydrogen cars starting from 2035, first targeting the region of Western Europe. This geographic region would be considered a test market and in the event of positive sales, the cars would be offered to other geographic regions. Several other automakers in both Europe and North America have a goal of offering zero-emission cars to their customers, but their target launch is 2040.
