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It's nearly the end of Ralph Hake's first year at Maytag Corp., and by most measures his time spent in the chairman's seat his been a success.
Since the 53-year-old Hake joined Maytag on June 19 from engineering and construction giant Fluor Corp., earnings disappointments have stopped, a number of new products are hitting stores and sales are expected to rise 15 percent to about $4.97 billion this year from last year's $4.32 billion.
Hake, who was chief financial officer at Fluor, has slashed costs and pumped up Maytag's advertising budget to capitalize on the company's strong brand name. The company's share price has soared roughly 58 percent in the past year, outpacing both Whirlpool Corp., the biggest maker of home appliances, and No. 2 appliance maker General Electric Co.
"It just goes to show that if you improve performance and do it consistently, you'll get rewarded," he said in an interview. "What matters is building quality."
Maytag is benefiting from last year's series of interest rate reductions by the Federal Reserve Board, which led to higher-than-expected sales of homes and in turn boosted Maytag's sales as consumers outfitted those homes with new appliances. The company is also aided by from the stability brought by Hake, who before Fluor spent more than a decade in executive positions at Whirlpool.
Prior to Hake's arrival, Maytag's management team had gone through nearly two years of upheaval and uncertainty. It...