HUGE couple of days in Pittsburgh Buisness

[tooluther 0]

1. US Steel Buying AK Steel...potential to add jobs at USS' Pittsburgh offices. If nothing else it props up USS' operations.

2. Del Monte's spin off of the private soup and baby food lines in going ahead. BUT contrary to previous discussion the Pittsburgh operations are safe...if not in line to be expanded.

3. Equitable is buying a bunch of Dominion's supplying rights. Since they are both based here this may seem irrelevent or bad. BUT Dominion moved a bunch of their back office opperations out of the Pittsburgh region after their last corp. shae up. Equitable has their shiny new north shore office building, and is already in need of more space because of this.

4. American Eagle is on fire!

5. rue21 (who moved to Warrandale following AE's lead) are about to open an additional 40 stores around the country...maybe they'll follow AE to the South Side too!

6. Even snoozer GNC is reporting good earnings

I can't belive all of this is happening in such a compact time frame...Gov. Eddy should declare it "Awesome Pittsburgh Biz Week"

ps. f&!$ you ALCOA CEO...you ruined the week

[mercurypa 0]

Congratulations to Pittsburgh's new economy!

[mjcatl2 8]

The amount of big deals had occured to me as well. Overall this should be a nice net positive in jobs. The Rue21 thing I had read about and have to admit, I'm not too familiar with their size - that's another enoucraging story. Though it would be great if they relocated to the city, I'm not sure it's an imperative fo them like AE.

[PghUSA 0]

Don't forget the huge write up on the newly minted IPO of Koppers yesterday in the PG. Glad to see one of the original industrials coming back strong around here!

[PghUSA 0]

Sadly there is news on Heinz with a soft-hostile (takeover) in the works lately.

When asked what the new raiders might be looking to do to improve a company that may not have many options in the food business (Kraft, Campbell's etc. are all being squeezed as well) one replied:

"He said selling out to Unilever is another possibility."

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06063/665183.stm

I have an idea why doesn't Heinz BUY Uni, I'm getting tired of the generation-long exodus of the financial engines of this city!

I know I know marketcap, warchest blah blah, Heinz needs to be on the move here, if you aren't buying then your dying or so goes the saying!

[tooluther 0]

The good news keeps rolling....Republic Airways is adding a major operations station at the airport. Including over night maintenance. Job creation=140.

Also, (as mentioned in the other thread of more specific nature) Heinz may be on the verge of a giant real estate deal. They are apparently looking at over 110,000 s.f. downtown.

And finally EDMC (educational management) just got bought out by an equity investor, but announced it is staying in Pittsburgh for their headquarter's opperations. They are moving from downtown to the strip district.