|
TWST: What is CLARCOR?
Mr. Johnson: CLARCOR's origin goes back 100 years to its founding as a
packaging company and has evolved to become one of the largest
filtration companies in the world. We remain in the packaging business '
it is about 10% of our sales and is still very important to us. Our
entry to filtration was the railroad industry where we supply all of the
filters used on diesel locomotive. In 1980 Baldwin Filters was acquired,
which is a leader in heavy-duty engine mobile filtration, with the two
biggest customer categories being over the road trucks and construction
equipment. We then broadened out into the other two segments of
filtration, environmental air and process liquid, giving us a presence
in the three main segments of filtration. The filtration industry is
about $30 billion dollars in sales and has been growing 2-3 points more
than GDP because, as we all know, the world needs cleaner air and
liquids. TWST: What are the keys at the industry level today as far as some of
the fundamentals, assumptions and variables?
Mr. Johnson: As I said earlier, the overall growth driver is the world
needs cleaner liquids and air. On the engine side of the business, we
have been very fortunate that the global transportation needs of the
economy have changed. Using a very simple example, while freight used to
be shipped from Chicago to Detroit, it is now shipped from Shanghai to
Detroit or someplace else around the world. The point is, the
transportation distances are longer and as a result, there are more
filtration needs because there are more miles driven resulting in more
filter usage. In terms of environmental air, we are all aware of the
concerns regarding cleaner air, whether it is dirty emissions from
factories or power plants that need to be cleaned or the need for pure
intake air in a hospital operating room or gas turbine intake. Overall
business has been very strong for us. We make filters for hundreds of
thousands of different applications. We serve a broad variety of
industries. Imagine yourself in a large city on the top floor of a large
building. Look out the window and you see trucks, planes and buildings '
all of them take a filter. It's one of the few businesses that everybody
uses every day and they probably don't even know it.
Tickers included in this excerpt: CLC
For more information call (212) 952 7433. The
Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does
not make stock recommendations.
|
|
