Yesterday I wrote about Oskar Huber, the venerable Philadelphia area furniture retailer that went belly up last year due in part to a terrible economy. Today, I want talk to you about another family run business that is taking some pretty unpopular steps in order to ensure they live to fight another day.
C. Scott Kulicke, CEO of Kulicke & Soffa, the Ft. Washington based semiconductor equipment maker, has made some hard decisions lately; cutting 240 jobs, reducing executive compensation by 15%, and trimming staff salaries by 10% across the board.
No doubt pay cuts are a pretty sore subject to anyone who has bills to pay, but in today’s economic climate, giving back sure beats standing in the unemployment line. Besides, Kulicke himself reached into his pocket cutting $110,000 from his current $550,000 salary. Some may argue that that isn’t much of a sacrifice, but I can show you 100 CEO’s that wouldn’t even consider a smaller paycheck regardless of the company’s financial condition.
Besides, a 20% cut for the CEO is nothing to sneeze at people. For example, when I did consulting work, I had the pleasure of dealing with a small technology company in Bala Cynwyd whose balance sheet was going the wrong way with no sales coming in to offset the losses. I mean these guys where literally 2 months away from liquidating.
When I asked the CFO and CEO how they could trim expenses, they handed me their pagers that cost the company $12.95 a month each, while the two of them had matching leased Mercedes-Benz’s outside that cost the company $1900 a month!
The point is, as the owner, you do whatever you have to do to keep your doors open, because sometimes, like in the case of the Huber’s, you may not get another chance. Good job Kulicke & Soffa!
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You see going out of business signs all over the Philadelphia area these days; in the newspaper, on T.V., in store windows and even the occasional A-frame draped over a random high school kid on Street Road or Roosevelt Blvd. trying to make a few extra bucks after school.
Rarely do I take notice of the names of the companies on the signs since I presume their tactics are merely a marketing ploy to empty the warehouse of remaindered carpets, tile, or furniture. Then, once they have sold off the inventory and beaten a few creditors, they re-open in a few months under a different name in a different part of the city only to repeat the process.
Then I read a fantastic article by Inquirer staff writer Diane Mastrull titled “Oskar Huber’s Legacy Yields to the Recession” and I knew this going out of business story was going to be different.
The article serves up the typical waxing poetic about the company and founder, Oskar Huber, and how the family-run business survived good times and bad, then flashes forward to the current crop of Hubers who took over the [click to continue…]
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About two months ago Verizon called me out of the blue and said they were doubling my DSL upload/download speeds at no additional cost, for which I was more than grateful. I had had the cheapest DSL plan at the time, giving me about 768 Kbps download and something in the neighborhood of 153 Kbps uploads, so I was pretty happy for the upgrade.
I can only imagine Verizon was trying to take away any reason for me to look elsewhere, or the system was going to be upgraded anyway, and they thought they would just make themselves look good while they were at it. Either way, I have been pretty happy with Verizon DSL after I had to throw Comcast out a few years ago due to continuous service disruptions.
Then I saw the Ad
I was going through the Sunday Inquirer last night ( I know, so much for timeliness ) and an 8 1/2 by 11 inch, full color ad dropped out of the paper promoting a DSL package from Verizon that is - wait for it, “34X Faster than 28.8 Kbps dial-up” with a $17.99 price point that was “Guaranteed To Never Go Up!” First of all, when are we going to stop comparing speeds to 28.8 Kbps?
Anyway, it dawned on me that Verizon is aggressively trying to convert whatever remaining customers they have on old dial-up plans over to DSL as soon as possible. Then I read the fine print. In it was the typical legal mumbo jumbo, but then I read this;
“Two-year contract with $99 early termination fee applies.”
That’s when the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Not for the $99, but because Verizon has taken a very profitable fee from their wireless division and now jammed it down the throats of their DSL customers in the hopes gaining some easy money. [click to continue…]
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I was cruising headlines the other day when I came across this nugget:
Conestoga Bank awards $30,000 grant to CCCS
CHESTER SPRINGS — Conestoga Bank has provided Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Delaware Valley with a five-year grant of $30,000 to provide financial education for low- to moderate-income families in the Delaware Valley.
You can read the rest here but does anyone else have a problem with this? As a former bill collector I know there is close knit relationship between banks and Consumer Credit Counseling Service. I am also aware that it is the banks that fund CCCS.
This leads me to my question
How well are you being represented by CCCS if they are funded by the very organizations that WE as consumers owe money to? It would be only human nature to look after the hand that is feeding you right?
Or do you consider the arrangement completely above board and on the level? I want to ask any of you out there in the Delaware Valley that have used a debt negotiation company exactly how well were you treated?
One person I talked to in Abington who used a Consumer Credit Counseling Service branch was actually walked across the street and into a PNC branch to take out a second mortgage to pay off their bills.
Now, I am no Suzy Orman, but I do know that taking unsecured credit card debt and paying it off with a secured second mortgage probably isn’t the right thing to do, even with the tax benefits involved.
So I want to know, any of you out there have a positive experience using one of these services? Any horror stories to tell? I want to know!
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Michael J. Thomas is a convicted drug dealer, and while the name may not ring any bells, he is a pretty big deal in the Philadelphia area. You see, Mr. Thomas, 40, is also the chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, and licensed to operate a casino in Philadelphia. The Pequot tribe are partners with Connecticut’s Foxwoods Casino in the project who should have picked a more qualified straw man for the deal.
Although Thomas did not respond to a request for an interview, Lori Potter, a spokeswoman for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, said, “All disclosure that was required by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board was adhered to during the process of his application.” Story
Here is my problem with her quote: “All disclosure that was required by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board was adhered to during the process of his application.” That line just makes me crazy. It’s as if they go right up to the line, stick a toe over it, and then stop right before they break the law.
Is this what we want in the city?
Governor Rendell, didn’t we learn anything from the Atlantic City experiment? Weren’t the casinos supposed to turn that city around and make it an East Coast destination? Do you think Atlantic City is going to get any better now that casinos are popping up all over the country? I mean hell, the Girl Scouts could file for a license if they wanted to (maybe they should, that way I wouldn’t have to sell cookies this year). Even with Atlantic City cleaning up its act it remains one of the poorest cities in terms of income in the country.
So why do the same thing?
I say this because of the silly language used in the quote, that “all that was required” really makes residents crazy since they have to live with the decisions made by people that don’t reside in the area – just like Atlantic City. Please someone tell me why anyone who has EVER had a criminal record should be allowed to hold a gaming license in Pennsylvania? Mayor Nutter, don’t you get any say it what is going on in your city?
But I have an answer
Since the genie is already out of the bottle, make any future licenses eligible only to Pennsylvania residents. Why? Because what does a convicted felon living in Connecticut care about what the hell happens in Philly? I don’t know, maybe I am sticking too close to my Quaker roots, but this deal stinks, and I am very interested to see how this plays out.
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