Trump Still Opposes US Steel Sale to Nippon [So That Happened]
Editor’s note: Welcome to So That Happened, our editors’ takes on things going on in the manufacturing world that deserve some extra attention. This will appear regularly in the Member’s Only section of the site.
Soup on the Menu at Northwest Stadium?
Sometimes, bringing in an outsider to run a company is the right move. Former Boeing executive Alan Mullaly’s financial stewardship at Ford Motor Co. in the mid-2000s, for example, kept that automaker from joining General Motors and Chrysler in bankruptcy during the Great Recession. 3M this year hired a former L3 Harris Technologies chief, Bill Brown, to run the company.
So, transitioning from making soup and Goldfish crackers to running a football team may not be so crazy.
The Washington Commanders announced this week that they’ve hired Mark Clouse as team president. Clouse has a 30+ year career in food marketing and manufacturing, having spent the last six years running Campbell’s Soup. In sports terms, he had around a 71 Total Quarterback Ranking during his tenure at Campbell’s – pretty close to the 71.8 QBR that Commanders passer Jayden Daniels is throwing this year, No. 5 in the league. (The Commanders, by the way, have a 75% chance of making the playoffs with a 8-5 record in the NFC East, well behind Philadelphia’s 10-2 record in that division).
Under Clouse, Campbell’s sales climbed 18.5%, and profits nearly tripled (up 168.7%) from 2019 through 2024. I knocked a few points off of his theoretical QBR rating for a profit decline from 2023 to 2024, related to Campbell’s purchase of Sovos Brands, makers of Rao’s pasta sauce and other products.
Clouse’s football bona fides? Well, he played college basketball at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point before spending six years as a helicopter pilot, rising to the rank of captain. During his many years running marketing departments at various food companies, there’s a good chance that he put a football player’s picture on a box of something.
“In Mark we have found a dynamic leader with a stellar track record of guiding organizations to excellence, building brands that connect deeply with consumers, and ultimately delivering best-in-class experiences and lasting memories,” said Josh Harris, managing partner of the Washington Commanders.
In resigning from Campbell’s, Clouse said the opportunity to get paid for playing a game (or at least managing people playing a game) was too cool of an opportunity to ignore.
“I am stepping away a bit earlier than I anticipated, I feel like I have one more act in my career,” Clouse said. “The Washington Commanders role is a once-in-a-lifetime position that blends my passion for business and love of sports. A leadership role in professional sports is the only thing that would’ve pulled me away from Campbell’s.”
Campbell’s promoted Mick Beekhuizen, president of its Meals & Beverages division and its CFO, to replace Clouse.
—Robert Schoenberger
Hospitals Have IV Supply Shortage in the Bag
Two months after a levee breach in Hurricane Helene flooded Baxter International’s largest U.S. manufacturing facility, hospitals are learning to adapt and – as they did during the COVID epidemic – developing conservation procedures that may become best practices long after the plant is fully operational again.
The North Cove, North Carolina, plant manufactures 60% of intravenous solutions products—including fluids and bags—in the United States. It employs 2,500 workers.
Mark Taylor, MD, director of surgical operations for the Cleveland Clinic, told the American Hospital Association in a recent podcast that the hospital is realizing that, with forethought, it has been able to reduce its use of IV bags and fluids.
“We[‘re] really focused on conservation,” Taylor said. “And we've been able to cut the indiscriminate use of large bags of fluid down to the appropriate size, including using IV push for short procedures that require one or two medications and a quick IV push or IV flush.
With an IV push, medication is injected directly into the IV line, eliminating the need for a bag.
“It’s [too] easy to hang one liter bag on everybody, whether or not they’re going to be on campus for 20 minutes or … undergoing a two-hour-long surgical procedure,” Taylor added.
The federal government, healthcare associations and in some cases local health consortiums aligned during COVID are also involved in the remediation efforts. In late October, the FDA authorized extending the use date of Baxter IV products to up to two years, according to the American Hospital Association.
The FDA also authorized Baxter to temporarily import fluids from Baxter plants in Canada, China, Ireland and the U.K. And the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services invoked the Defense Production Act to help with rebuilding the facility.
The American Society of Health System Pharmacists advised smaller volumes of IV fluids for procedures less than 6-8 hours. It also recommended the pushes or using dosages in a different form, which could be a pill if available or possibly more fluids taken orally.
The latest update from Baxter on Nov. 26 stated the North Cove plant has upped allocation levels for several IV products, with a one to two-week lag time. The immediate goal is to hit 100% allocation in several IV products by year’s end.
—Laura Putre
Your Daily Helping of Ransomware Doom and Gloom
Research firm Comparitech today released a report on the costs of ransomware attacks on manufacturers, based on detailed analysis of 858 ransomware attacks that took place between 2018 and 2023.
According to the report, manufacturers suffer an average of 11.6 days of downtime, threat actors demand an average of $10.7 million, and the most common victims were manufacturers in the transportation/automotive and food and beverage sectors.
The top five largest ransomware demands in the Comparitech data:
- Boeing, $200 million. The company refused to pay.
- Johnson Controls International, $51 million. Recovery costs from the attack totaled $27 million. The company never confirmed or denied paying the ransomware demand.
- Quanta Computer Inc., Acer, E.M.I.T. Aviation Consuting Ltd. and Continental, all hit with $50 million ransomware demands in 2021. Acer offered a $10 million payment that was rejected. Continental refused to pay. No information as to whether the other two companies offered or denied the payment demand.
- Foxconn Electronics, $34.7 million. It took nine days for the company to recover from the attack.
- Pierre Fabre, $25 million. The company restored its systems within 24 hours.
The top five biggest reported recovery costs:
- Danish medical equipment manufacturer Demant, $95 million. The company did not meet the ransom demand and took over a month to recover from the attack.
- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), loss from shipment delays cost $85 million. Production resumed after three days.
- Packaging manufacturer WestRock, $79 million.
- Norsk Hydro, $71.6 million. The attack costs a week’s worth of disruptions.
- The Clorox Company, $57 million. (You can read all about this one here on IndustryWeek).
Interesting that the largest profile attack in recent memory sits at the bottom of the recovery costs list.
If you really want to get into the weeds on the data, Comparitech updates daily a worldwide ransomware attack tracker.
—Dennis Scimeca
U.S. Steel’s Deal Hangs by a Thread. Tariffs to the Rescue?
President-elect Donald Trump’s first post-election tariff pronouncements were focused on Canada and Mexico and those countries’ efforts related to immigration into the United States. On Dec. 2, Trump turned to Truth Social to shift the focus to the fate of U.S. Steel Corp., which is officially still set to be acquired by Nippon Steel Corp.
Trump emphatically reiterated his plan to block that proposed deal and promised a package of tax incentives and tariffs to revive U.S. Steel’s fortunes. To punctuate his post, the president-elect wrote, “Buyer beware!!!”
Despite one more set of assurances from Nippon Steel officials that they are adamant about preserving U.S. Steel’s place in the country’s industrial and national security spheres, shares of the targeted company (Ticker: X) promptly fell 8% to $37 and change on the news. Nippon’s bid calls for it to pay $55 per U.S. Steel share.
Coincidentally—or not—that $30-something price level is in the ZIP code of where Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. boss Lourenco Goncalves said earlier this year he’d consider buying U.S. Steel. Goncalves and his team recently completed their acquisition of Stelco Holdings Inc. to grow their footprint in Canada—a move Goncalves said they made because the U.S. Steel saga has dragged on for more than a year since he went public with his first offer to buy the company. Despite that, Goncalves recently told the Globe & Mail he’s still game for a U.S. Steel deal.
Speaking of Canada and tariffs: The Steel Manufacturers Association this week presented Trump a five-part action plan to protect U.S. manufacturers. Notable among the points is a call for the reimposition of 25% tariffs on Mexican steel imports but only a call to “closer monitor imports from Canada, reimposing tariffs if necessary.”
Cleveland-Cliffs isn’t a member of the SMA but Goncalves last month sounded like he’s on the same page as the group.
“Not all imports are created equal,” he said on a conference call. “A country like Canada, for example, follows the rules and does things the right way and this is a large part of the rationale behind Cleveland-Cliffs acquiring Stelco.”
—Geert De Lombaerde
