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...world's cement, 31% of the world's coal and 27% of its steel last year, helping drive up prices for many commodities, such as metals, by 50%. But prices have been falling for several weeks, to the delight of many. Jeffrey Sheu, spokesman for Taiwan-based bicycle maker Giant Manufacturing, applauds China's efforts to rein in the economy, because rising materials costs have eroded profit margins. Not only that, Giant, which operates three factories on the mainland and sells to Chinese consumers, hopes that tougher lending rules will prevent additional entrepreneurs from entering the business. "The bicycle industry...
Boardroom drama like that at Shell is becoming more common in Europe. Being a chief executive officer these days is a bit like being on a reality-TV show: no one knows who will get voted out next. In the past month alone, London-based SSL International, maker of Durex condoms and Scholl foot products, replaced its CEO. German tech company Infineon unexpectedly lost its blunt-speaking CEO, Ulrich Schumacher. He said he was leaving for "personal reasons," but it's clear that the board and shareholders were dissatisfied with the company's performance. An interim chief, Max Dietrich Kley...
ROBERT POLET Trading Up Luxury-goods maker Gucci shocked the fashion world when it picked Polet, 48, as its new CEO, since the Dutchman had spent his career at Unilever, a purveyor of low-brow brands such as Lever 2000 soap and Birds Eye peas. Polet has big, fancy shoes to fill at Gucci. Outgoing CEO Domenico De Sole is credited, along with designer Tom Ford, with reviving the empire. But Polet is a brand builder too. In his last post as president of Unilever's $7.8 billion frozen-foods division, he raised profit margins 70% in a little more...
JONATHAN SCHWARTZ Software Smarty Sun Microsystems is a company in deep shadow. The network computer maker has seen sales drop for 12 straight quarters and recently announced 3,300 layoffs. Trying to brighten that darkness is the ponytailed Schwartz, 38, the firm's new COO. He most recently ran Sun's software division, where he headed new strategies for deploying Sun's Java platform. One ongoing initiative: a push into markets such as China and India, where Microsoft doesn't have a stranglehold and Sun can more easily sell its systems for desktops and devices...
...chairman, Bill Gates, even reclaimed his title as the world's richest man, after a widely published story claiming that the founder of Ikea had replaced him turned out to be so many Swedish meatballs. And Gates' baby, based in Redmond, Wash., is still by far the largest software maker in the world, with a healthy $56 billion in the bank and revenue conservatively expected to rise 5% next year, to about $38 billion. It has buried the hatchet with Sun Microsystems and AOL with billions of dollars in legal settlements. What could possibly be wrong with Microsoft...