News
Cookson Group plc
(London, UK) announced that Stephen Howard intends to relinquish his
role as group chief executive after the identification and appointment
of a successor. The process of identifying a successor has commenced
and the Board hopes that an appointment will be made during 2004.
Accordingly, it is expected that Howard will leave the company on or
before Dec. 31, 2004.
Howard has been a
director of Cookson since 1992 and in his current position since 1997.
During the seven years of his tenure as group chief executive, Cookson
has been fundamentally reshaped into a highly focused group, centered
around electronics and ceramics, with the precious metals division the
subject of an ongoing strategic review, as announced on March 15, 2004.
Stephen
Howard said, "My eighteen years at Cookson have been enormously
fulfilling, but the time has simply come to do something else. The
company is now in excellent competitive shape and the long-awaited
recovery is clearly underway, making this year the appropriate time to
pass the baton on."
Bob Beeston, chairman of Cookson, said, "The
Board is very grateful for Stephen Howard's contribution to, and
leadership of, the company over many years. After three years of very
difficult trading conditions, Cookson is now firmly on the recovery
path, is in a sound financial position and is therefore very well
positioned to prosper under his successor."
An announcement concerning a successor will be made at the appropriate time.
At Nepcon Shanghai 2004, Cor Scholten, Assembléon's (Eindhoven, The
Netherlands) chief executive officer, confirmed that Asia, and in particular, China, is a key element of the company's long-term global business strategy.
In 2003, sales in Asia grew to 40% of the company's total sales, up from just over 30% in 2002, with China representing 30% of this growth. As a direct result of the company's aggressive drive to increase market share in this market, Assembléon expects China to represent 70% of total Asia sales in 2004.
"We recognized China as a growing force in the global market several years ago and moved quickly to position ourselves to serve not only the large multinational original design manufacturers (ODMs) and electronics manufacturing service (EMS) companies that were moving their operations into China, but also the large number of local Chinese enterprises that were becoming increasingly sophisticated and challenging the foreign-owned multinationals," said Scholten.
"Unlike many other vendors, Assembléon does not view China simply as a location for low-cost manufacturing," Scholten continued. "Instead, we firmly believe that China is one of the key market and technology drivers in the world. No longer is China just looking at its export markets, but domestic sales are booming and helping to drive new technology around the world. Also, many of the domestic brands, such as Bird, Eastcom, and TCL, are outselling multinational brands by swiftly incorporating new functionality as soon as it becomes available."
In addition to its distribution policy, Assembléon has continued its own direct commitment to China, and expects to more than quadruple its staff headcount by the end of 2004. The additional staff will be deployed in the new locations around the country and in a new training and demonstration center expected to open in Shanghai before the end of the year.
Assembléon's drive to increase market share and sales in 2004 is focused upon a number of industry segments: consumer electronics—including PC motherboards, mobile phones, LCD monitors and DVD/EVD players; telecommunications equipment, including PBXs and trunking systems; and the automotive electronics and GPS segments.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
Valor Computerized Systems (Yavne, Israel), a software solutions provider to the electronics industry, has reported an improvement in its revenue for the first quarter of 2004.
Business in the global electronics industry is picking up, which is positively impacting the company's overall business. Revenues in the first quarter increased by 16.4% to $7.15 million, up from $6.14 million in Q1 2003.
During the quarter, Valor experienced a steep increase in research and development investments, due to the purchase of 50% of Danish company TraceXpert and the development of new products. R&D expenses rose 60% from the same quarter last year to $2.66 million. The company's headcount increased to 199, a raise of 16% mainly attributed to the increase in the R&D force.
Selling and marketing expenses were the same as the previous quarter at $3.34 million, up 9.6% from the previous year. +Product sales generated $4.6 million, up 20% year-on-year.
Due to the investments in new products, the net profit for Q1 was $295,000, down from $623,000 in Q1 2003. However, positive cash flow from operating activities reached $1.25 million.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
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