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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: clochard who wrote (58666)	4/19/2006 6:31:30 AM
From: shades	Respond to of 110194

Jews selling thier scrap forward.com ....In recent years, though, as China's need for raw materials drove metal prices soaring, suitors began calling on the Kroots' scrap yard. Late last year, the Kroots had a family meeting and decided to sell the business to OmniSource, a Fort Wayne company that owns 35 scrap yards. The president of the scrap metal association estimates that Jewish families now own about 50% of American scrap yards — down from 80% or 90% a decade ago. For Barry Kroot, the shift was all too evident at the conference. "In the old days, it was the Kroots and the Rifkins and they were always here," he said. "My dad made lifelong friends. It's not as much like that today. There are far fewer family businesses because of what we just did. And the families that are left send executives instead of the owners." Scrap metal is one of the oldest Jewish businesses in America. As it goes the way of globalization, a particularly Jewish — if mostly unnoticed — way of life disappears with it. ....Indeed, some of the companies that were most aggressively buying out scrap yards during the late 1990s have since gone bankrupt or are struggling financially. In the past three years, however, a new wave of consolidation began, driven by skyrocketing metal prices. Since 2003, the price of nickel, for instance, has doubled to $6.50 a pound. The largest consolidators today include David Joseph, a Dutch outfit, and Metal Management, a publicly traded company. Some consolidators, though, are simply Jewish family businesses that expanded. OmniSource, which bought the Kroots's business, is still run by the Rifkin family. Stolberg said that his family has been forced to expand just to stay on top of the business's growing fixed costs: There are always new shredders, compactors and environmental tests needed.