Caterpillar released its first-quarter earnings Monday, and, as expected, it wasn’t pretty — for the company, or South Milwaukee.
Check out coverage from the Milwaukee Business Journal, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal. From the WSJ:
Caterpillar increased its exposure to the mining sector with its 2011 purchase of Bucyrus International Inc. for $8.8 billion. Caterpillar predicted that sales of Bucyrus machinery lines this year will decline 15%, while sales of big mining trucks, large wheel loaders and other mining machinery traditionally built by Caterpillar are expected to fall 50% from last year.
Chief Executive Doug Oberhelman said he remains upbeat about the Bucyrus purchase and the company’s deeper penetration into mining. “I still firmly believe that our move into mining was a change for the better,” Mr. Oberhelman said during a conference call Monday with analysts. “We’re definitely in a down cycle now [in mining], but long term it’s a great business for us.”
And check out Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Business Journal coverage of Cooper Power Systems deciding to ship jobs in Pewaukee to Mexico. Thankfully, this doesn’t seem to impact South Milwaukee, where Cooper Power Sytems employs hundreds of people at its facility on Ninth Avenue.
You’ll recall that Eaton Corp. acquired Cooper last year.
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