— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
Air Products — the most important business in the Lehigh Valley — needs a new chairman.
Seifi Ghasemi was voted off the board after a proxy battle led by activist investor Mantle Ridge. Ghasemi will continue as president until a new one is chosen, and the company’s current plan is for the next president to succeed Ghasemi as CEO within three months. Ghasemi can’t continue as chairman of the board because he’s not on the board.
The succession plan could change after Thursday’s votes for board members. Mantle Ridge does not have a majority of the board, but it has a lot of support for change. Remember that all the arguments can be distilled into one thing: what’s the best strategy for boosting the share price?
Meanwhile, shares in the maker of industrial gases (NYSE:APD) have been moving up. The closing price Friday was $329.26, up $5.26. I’d like to have seen Ghasemi continue on the board, but my votes didn’t quite sway the election. Air Products is based in Lower Macungie Township and employs lots of well-paid people in the Lehigh Valley.
Shift4 also needs a new leader, as CEO and founder Jared Isaacman is going to be running NASA. Isaacman is a pilot and has been to space twice with SpaceX.
I don’t expect big changes at Shift4, based in Upper Saucon Township, if it continues as an independent company (NYSE:FOUR). President Taylor Lauber and Chief Financial Officer are on board with Isaacman’s strategy of profitable growth, not taking losses for the sake of market share.
That could change if the company were put up for sale again. Isaacman did that once but said the offers made weren’t high enough.
Shift4 processes payments at hotels, restaurants, arenas and other businesses. It has been growing steadily. The closing price Friday was $116.76, not far from the 52-week high.
PPL won’t report fourth-quarter earnings until Feb. 13, but there is some excitement around the utility thanks to the Artificial Intelligence boom.
AI and data centers need huge amounts of electricity. The Allentown-based utility is looking for those customers and has picked one up in Kentucky.
Also in the utility industry, Constellation Energy (NASDAQ:CEG) recently agreed to buy Calpine Corp. for about $26.6 billion. That’s a big deal, but bigger than PPL’s current market capitalization of $24.3 billion.
Then there’s OraSure. The Bethlehem-based maker of diagnostic kits and sample-collection devices has crept over the $4 mark, closing Friday at $4.01. That’s still just below half of the company’s 52-week high.
OraSure has a clean balance sheet, but how this little company (NASDAQ:OSUR, market capitalization $299 million) can get a big boost from anything internal remains a mystery.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a windfall in sales and federal contracts for OraSure. Perhaps another public health issue, or some kind of deal with a bigger company, can boost the stock.
Thermo Fisher Scientific is based in Massachusetts, but it has operations in the Lehigh Valley. The maker of medical and laboratory devices will report earnings Thursday. Shares in Thermo Fisher (NYSE:TMO) finished the day Friday at $574.82, then dipped in late trading.
— Disclosure: I own shares in Air Products, Shift4, PPL and Thermo Fisher.
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 