The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a story in Sunday’s business section about the impacts of Caterpillar’s acquisition of Bucyrus International last year.
It paints an overwhelmingly positive picture.
Check it out here. From it:
Caterpillar has added about 200 jobs in South Milwaukee since it acquired Bucyrus and now has 1,600 employees. The company is spending $6 billion on capital expenditures, much of it in the mining equipment division.
“We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in our U.S. manufacturing plants. We are confident that, for a lot of our products, it makes sense to have a large North American presence,” Wunning said.
Last July, it seemed as if 131 years of Bucyrus history was wiped clean when Caterpillar took over, dropped the Bucyrus name and rebranded everything in its own name.
The change seemed sudden, but Caterpillar spent months preparing for it.
The Peoria, Ill., company wanted one face for the mining division, not two, Wunning said of dropping the Bucyrus name.
“We can grow our businesses faster together than we could individually,” he said.
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South Milwaukee Blog 
Sounds like another slick guy in town. His statements might mean something to investors but not to SM. Don’t forget that prior to the purchase, Bucyrus was totally remodeled and expanded. While it sounds like a nice number, it is doubtful that much of that $6B is being spent here (with the exception of signage and that type of marketing stuff). North America is a big place and there are a lot of CAT mining facilities. Also, how many of those 200 job are “real” job creations and how many are just transfers. I know a couple of people who used to work in Peoria and will told that if they wish to continue their employment with CAT they will be working in SM or OC. I don’t consider those “new SM jobs” anywhere close to the same category as if they hired an unemployed accountant from the city.
With respect to the name change, I fully understand the marketing reasons. What I have difficulty with is the fact that Mr. Sullivan got up there to announce the sale and said that he stood firm that they keep it in Wisconsin and keep the name. Since the time from announcement to completion was very short and the article said that CAT “spent months preparing for it” [the name change], it would seem that the initial statement was less than honest. But then again, wasn’t there a recent admission that while the company was accepting accolades and dollars from Gov. Doyle and others, they were secretly acquiring a welding shop in Texas? And that it felt so good to finally be able to talk about it?