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UPPER SAUCON TOWNSHIP — Air Products CEO Seifi Ghasemi said Friday the global industrial gases company will remain based in the Lehigh Valley, despite hundreds of local job cuts since he took the helm nearly two years ago. "We're not going anywhere," said Ghasemi, responding to a question from Lehigh County Executive Tom Muller on the company's local employment outlook. His comment elicited applause from the sold-out, appreciative crowd of 200 who filled a ballroom at the Saucon Valley Country Club for a breakfast event organized by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce. Ghasemi discussed the company's goals, its growing profit margin and his leadership style in his first extensive public remarks since he was hired in July 2014. One of four major industrial gas companies in the world, Air Products is best when it's focused on gas, Ghasemi said. That is why the company announced last year it would spin off its performance materials and electronic materials divisions, he said. It has since announced it is selling the performance materials division to German conglomerate Evonik Industries AG, which has committed in the short term, at least, to keeping the jobs in the Valley. The electronic materials division is slated to spin off into a new company, Versum Materials, and its headquarters has yet to be announced. In all this, Ghasemi has led the major restructuring efforts at Air Products, one of the Lehigh Valley's two Fortune 500 companies, in attempting to make it more nimble. Among his goals is making Air Products the "safest" and "most profitable" industrial gas company worldwide, and Ghasemi showed the audience via a slide presentation how its fiscal fortunes have moved upward. Air Products' earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, aka EBITDA, was 35.1 percent for its most recent quarter, an improvement over 25.1 percent from the same quarter in 2014. It also exceeds the other major industrial gas companies, Ghasemi said, including Praxair (33.3 percent), Air Liquide (26.1 percent), the Linde Group (23.3 percent), and Airgas (18.3 percent). "We are now the most profitable industrial gas company in the world," he said, adding Air Products had been No. 3 in terms of EBITDA margin. "And this is the best measure, because it's against the same people who are in the same business." But during the quarter, the company posted a $473 million loss while slashing 170 jobs. Air Products attributed the downswing to a one-time, pretax loss of $945.7 million associated with the planned closure of its "energy-from-waste" incinerator in Tees Valley, United Kingdom. It marked another business arena from which Air Products is exiting. Also under Ghasemi, Air Products has cut about $300 million in overhead. That and other moves have boosted the company's stock price in his tenure, but it also has led to about 2,000 job cuts globally — including about 435 locally. The total cuts include about 10 percent of the worldwide workforce. Air Products has $10 billion in sales and a more than $30 billion market cap. On Friday, Ghasemi dwelled on those statistics and other positives, including a $2.1 billion joint venture announced last year to build the largest industrial gas complex partnership in the world for a refinery operated by oil giant Saudi Aramco. Chuck Sander, a former five-year Air Products employee who is with the organizational-design consulting business ePM LLC in Macungie, asked Ghasemi about the project's "financial risk" and "organizational risk" to Air Products, given the corporate cultural changes. "Our people, with all the turmoil, are happy to have that project," Ghasemi said, "because it keeps us busy." Afterward, Sander, who stressed he likes what Ghasemi is doing, also expressed some caution about the Saudi project — more on the organizational side. "My only concern is how the company internally is doing," said Sander, whose father, Robert, is a retired Air Products employee. "He's saying that the company is rising to the challenge, and I believe that Air Products people like the challenge, but I'd be worried about the turmoil inside, because you have this big project, [and] people are worried about being laid off." Tony Iannelli, the Chamber's CEO and president, said Ghasemi is the "perfect person at the right time at Air Products." "I talk to your employees all the time," Iannelli said in introducing Ghasemi, "and people like you." To read the original article, click here
UPPER SAUCON TOWNSHIP — Air Products CEO Seifi Ghasemi said Friday the global industrial gases company will remain based in the Lehigh Valley, despite hundreds of local job cuts since he took the helm nearly two years ago.
"We're not going anywhere," said Ghasemi, responding to a question from Lehigh County Executive Tom Muller on the company's local employment outlook.
His comment elicited applause from the sold-out, appreciative crowd of 200 who filled a ballroom at the Saucon Valley Country Club for a breakfast event organized by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce.
Ghasemi discussed the company's goals, its growing profit margin and his leadership style in his first extensive public remarks since he was hired in July 2014.
One of four major industrial gas companies in the world, Air Products is best when it's focused on gas, Ghasemi said. That is why the company announced last year it would spin off its performance materials and electronic materials divisions, he said. It has since announced it is selling the performance materials division to German conglomerate Evonik Industries AG, which has committed in the short term, at least, to keeping the jobs in the Valley.
The electronic materials division is slated to spin off into a new company, Versum Materials, and its headquarters has yet to be announced.
In all this, Ghasemi has led the major restructuring efforts at Air Products, one of the Lehigh Valley's two Fortune 500 companies, in attempting to make it more nimble.
Among his goals is making Air Products the "safest" and "most profitable" industrial gas company worldwide, and Ghasemi showed the audience via a slide presentation how its fiscal fortunes have moved upward.
Air Products' earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, aka EBITDA, was 35.1 percent for its most recent quarter, an improvement over 25.1 percent from the same quarter in 2014. It also exceeds the other major industrial gas companies, Ghasemi said, including Praxair (33.3 percent), Air Liquide (26.1 percent), the Linde Group (23.3 percent), and Airgas (18.3 percent).
"We are now the most profitable industrial gas company in the world," he said, adding Air Products had been No. 3 in terms of EBITDA margin. "And this is the best measure, because it's against the same people who are in the same business."
But during the quarter, the company posted a $473 million loss while slashing 170 jobs. Air Products attributed the downswing to a one-time, pretax loss of $945.7 million associated with the planned closure of its "energy-from-waste" incinerator in Tees Valley, United Kingdom. It marked another business arena from which Air Products is exiting.
Also under Ghasemi, Air Products has cut about $300 million in overhead. That and other moves have boosted the company's stock price in his tenure, but it also has led to about 2,000 job cuts globally — including about 435 locally. The total cuts include about 10 percent of the worldwide workforce.
Air Products has $10 billion in sales and a more than $30 billion market cap. On Friday, Ghasemi dwelled on those statistics and other positives, including a $2.1 billion joint venture announced last year to build the largest industrial gas complex partnership in the world for a refinery operated by oil giant Saudi Aramco.
Chuck Sander, a former five-year Air Products employee who is with the organizational-design consulting business ePM LLC in Macungie, asked Ghasemi about the project's "financial risk" and "organizational risk" to Air Products, given the corporate cultural changes.
"Our people, with all the turmoil, are happy to have that project," Ghasemi said, "because it keeps us busy."
Afterward, Sander, who stressed he likes what Ghasemi is doing, also expressed some caution about the Saudi project — more on the organizational side.
"My only concern is how the company internally is doing," said Sander, whose father, Robert, is a retired Air Products employee. "He's saying that the company is rising to the challenge, and I believe that Air Products people like the challenge, but I'd be worried about the turmoil inside, because you have this big project, [and] people are worried about being laid off."
Tony Iannelli, the Chamber's CEO and president, said Ghasemi is the "perfect person at the right time at Air Products."