Monthly Archives: January 2005

Rayovac Acquires ST. Louis based United Industries

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Atlanta (ouch!) based Rayovac is expected to announce a $476M acquisition of closely held United Industries, a consumer-products maker of such brands as Cutter insect repellant, Sta-Green fertilizer, and Eight in One Pet supplies, according to Dennis Berman

The move is the latest in Rayovac’s plan to transform itself from a seller of low-cost batteries, which has been its focus for nearly 100 years, into a diversified purveyor of consumer products. In acquiring United, which operates under the Spectrum Brands name in the U.S., Rayovac expects its battery sales to account for just 40% of overall revenue, down from 67%.
The deal will pay St. Louis-based United a total of $406 million in Rayovac shares, which closed trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange at $29.56. Rayovac will also pay $70 million in cash to United’s shareholders, while redeeming or replacing $900 million of United’s outstanding debt. The companies are targeting cost savings of about $70 million to $75 million, company executives said. They said the deal will be immediately accretive to Rayovac’s earnings.

Seems rather strange that a battery company would acquire a fertilizer and insect repellant firm, until I read that “both have long been under the wing of private-equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners“. Ah, sounds like packaging for a bigger deal. Madison has growing risk here with respect to Rayovac’s ongoing employment.

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Madison Good Samaritans

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I talked briefly with a Madisonian who was quite a good Samaritan Saturday. This person lives at the bottom of two hills which a number of people slid down during the freezing rain. Several of those people spent the night at his family’s home. One, a Korean woman and her young child had never driven on ice before…. Here’s the story of the Good Samaritan….

Taxpayer Bill of Rights [TABOR], A Look at Colorado’s Experience

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Wisconsin’s legislature continues to consider a Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Colorado passed a taxpayer bill of rights in 1992. Steven Walters visits the front range to talk with locals about their version of TABOR. Why did TABOR happen in Colorado? The numbers tell the story:

  • The problem: From 1983 to ’92, spending by Colorado state government rose by 97%, while inflation rose 29.7% and the state’s population increased by 10.4%. We have a similar problem, unfortunately, Wisconsin’s economy is not the powerhouse it once was.
  • The solution: In 1992, Colorado voters – by a 54% to 46% margin – passed a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights that limited state spending and required excess tax funds to be refunded the next year, unless voters let governments keep the surplus.

Much more here:
alltheweb | Clusty | Google | MSN Search | Teoma | Yahoo Search

Hawaii: Maui’s Haleakala Sunrise Photos & Video

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Click on the photos to view larger versions of the images. Visiting the “house of the sun” is quite an experience. Maui’s Haleakala crater sites at 10,000 feet. It’s quite a drive up from the beach – at 4:00a.m.
Mark Twain described Maui’s Haleakala Sunrise as follows:

It was the sublimest spectacle I ever witnessed, and I think the memory of it will remain with me always.

Enjoy the complete sunrise via this Maui Haleakala Crater Sunrise Movie with music. Webcam.
Background links: alltheweb | Clusty | Google | MSN Search | Teoma | Yahoo Search

How long will our ascendancy last? Jared Diamond on US Power

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Very useful reading:
Jared Diamond, who won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction for “Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies,” is the author of the forthcoming “Collapse: How Societies Choose or Fail to Succeed.” His article, The Ends of the World as We Know Them was published January 1, 2005:

History also teaches us two deeper lessons about what separates successful societies from those heading toward failure. A society contains a built-in blueprint for failure if the elite insulates itself from the consequences of its actions. That’s why Maya kings, Norse Greenlanders and Easter Island chiefs made choices that eventually undermined their societies. They themselves did not begin to feel deprived until they had irreversibly destroyed their landscape.
Could this happen in the United States? It’s a thought that often occurs to me here in Los Angeles, when I drive by gated communities, guarded by private security patrols, and filled with people who drink bottled water, depend on private pensions, and send their children to private schools. By doing these things, they lose the motivation to support the police force, the municipal water supply, Social Security and public schools. If conditions deteriorate too much for poorer people, gates will not keep the rioters out. Rioters eventually burned the palaces of Maya kings and tore down the statues of Easter Island chiefs; they have also already threatened wealthy districts in Los Angeles twice in recent decades.

Iowa’s state government funds a local Venture Capital Deal

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Sort of a deja vu vis a vis SWIB’s initiatives:

The money for the Acuity Ventures agreement will come from the Grow Iowa Values Fund, the economic development program that’s limping along with about $16 million of $100 million still available.
Lawmakers are expected to consider early next year finding a permanent source for the $503 million premier economic development program.

I generally think the state should just get out of the way and focus on reducing costs and paperwork. In other words, spend time on things that make it easier to create business and hire people in Wisconsin.