Interview with Mr. John Hastings FGH/IR
Just finished a chat with Mr Hastings covering following topics:
Q - When do you expect to put out a press release/announcement providing status of current events?
A - Very Soon. (He could not be more precise than this; but, based on previous conversation I expect in the next week or ten days.) The announcement will be released via Business Wire, on Yahoo and others, as well as our Web site and will cover several topics.
Q - What is the status of the integration process of the merged companies? Are there any hitches?
A - Going Fine. We have our strategic plan put in place here. We are evaluating a number of none core assets for divestiture to free up some cash. We are assimilating the two systems of accounting and integrating all the different things to make it one company. Things are going smoothly and we are not running into any major problems. Generally speaking, things are going quite well.
Q - What is the general status of overall business activity?
A - We have quite a few Bids outstanding right now. We are experiencing a very solid level of inquiries for a wide range of - not only vessel type projects; but, also other off shore energy projects whether its construction project or an upgrade to an existing piece. Not so much new construction right now; but, lots of inquiries on upgrades, retrofits and people looking to bringing equipment back into service.
Q - You have higher margins there anyway, don't you?
A - We do; but, of course they are smaller dollars and are accomplished more quickly.
Q - They do keep your crews busy don't they?
A - That's right, they sure do!
Q - While talking about that, what is the status of manpower right now? Are you hiring, firing, maintaining the status quo, What?
A - Right now, pretty constant? Of course that all depends on the status of work at an individual yard.
We are utilizing attrition because of some slow down in our work instead of laying people off. We also use a number of contract laborers. We probably have over a 1000 contract workers, right now. We can shift those levels up and down without losing our corps group of craft workers.
Q - What would you say is the total employment of the Company, right now?
A - Approximately 9000 which is about the same as 3 months ago.
SUMMARY: My general feel is that in general terms the Company is now operating in a more cyclically friendly environment than that experienced in recent months. There is more to the interview but, I?ll cut it off here lest I be accused of using up too much bandwidth for this one company. I have endeavored to focus on one company (not to tout/pump as I am often accused of) as a surrogate in an attempt to provide an objective overview of information/events which affect the entire sector. Mr. Hastings, as expected, was friendly, informative and as straight forward as he could be in consideration of his position.
SargeK |
