End of the Run of the Mills
From PROSALES, by Craig Webb: The housing crisis is beating Weyerhaeuser Co. to a pulp in more ways than one.
It’s high-quality, mostly move-up home building businesses are getting battered in some of the nation’s most brutal new-home markets; and on the building supply side, things just ain’t getting any easier. Word is the Seattle-based conglomerate has been nosing around in the financial markets for months now looking for partners or a buyer for its well-regarded home building operations.
Meanwhile, iLevel, a business whose design was practically set up for 2005-06-style capacity and velocity, is a big capability literally in search of a floor in the market. Here’s how ProSales editor Craig Webb queues up their predicament in his news flash about Weyerhaeuser’s shutting two more mills:
“Demand for wood products continues to decline due to a slowdown in the housing market,” Tom Gideon, executive vice president, Forest Products, said of the latest announcement, which will affect 307 employees. “Unfortunately, extraordinarily weak market conditions in the homebuilding industry require that we take decisive action.”
The car business and new residential construction business have two essential similarities these days. One is that nobody knows how many new ones of either we need to meet real demand. The other is that double-digit unemployment is virtually a lock if both industries stay in the tank.
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