Methanex sticks to its knitting
Methanex was created just six years ago by the breakup of Ocelot Industries (Calgary, AB), a conglomerate with too many different business and too much debt. Those demons have since been banished, but management remains obsessive about focused, low-cost operations and a squeaky-clean balance sheet. The results show in a company that is generally admired, occasionally resented, and always speculated about. The top two questions are what it will do with its cash hoard, $$413 million as of first-quarter 1997, and when it will diversify. Pierre Choquette, who became president in December 1994, hears the questions often but says he is more amused by them than irritated, because the answers are so obvious. {open_quotes}We review the situation at every board meeting, but usually we prefer to have the liquid assets - it gives you a lot of advantages - and to reinvest in the core business,{close_quotes} says Choquette. {open_quotes}We paid $$275 million for our second plant in Chile, which we just completed, and the third one now under construction will cost about $300 million. I sit on a nonchemical company`s board, and we wonder at every downturn, {open_quote}How are we going to survive?{close_quote} [Having a cushion] is a lot nicer.{close_quotes}
- OSTI ID:
- 549221
- Journal Information:
- Chemical Week, Vol. 159, Issue 17; Other Information: PBD: 30 Apr 1997
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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