Sherwin-Williams' new president and CEO delivered a "gratifying" full-year and fourth quarter earnings report released Thursday (Jan. 28).

The Cleveland-based coatings giant said net income per share increased 27.1 percent to reach $11.16 per share for 2015. Sales also were up, reaching $11.34 billion—a 1.9 percent increase.

For the last quarter of its fiscal year—which ended Dec. 31—net sales were $2.60 billion, a 4.1 percent increase compared to the same time last year, according to the company’s financial report. For the quarter, net income per common share increased $2.12 per share compared to $1.37 per share in 2014

It is gratifying to report another year of record performance in sales, net income, which surpassed $1.0 billion for the first time, earnings per share, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization and net operating cash,” commented John G. Morikis, president and CEO of Sherwin-Williams.

The company reported the following business segment results.

Stores Ring Up

“Over the past year, our Paint Stores Group grew architectural sales volume across every end market segment and delivered positive operating results,” Morikis noted.

The business unit posted net sales of $7.21 billion for the year, an increase of 5.2 percent over the prior year. For the quarter, net sales increased 5.9 percent to reach $1.68 billion.

Paint Stores Group segment profit increased to $1.43 billion in the year from $1.20 billion last year and increased to $316.1 million in the quarter from $247.5 million last year due primarily to higher paint sales volume.Net sales from stores open for more than 12 calendar months increased 4.2 percent in the year and 5.1 percent the quarter of last year’s comparable periods.

Morikis said the company added 83 net new stores, finishing the year with a fleet of 4,086 stores in operation.

Consumer Group Gains

The company’s Consumer Group posted net sales of $1.58 billion, an 11.1 percent increase over the prior year. For the quarter the unit posted sales of $314.6 million, a 13.6 percent increase from the same period a year before.

A key factor for the increase was the sales of HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams paint to the Lowe’s home improvement stores, the company noted.

Segment profit rose to $308.8 million in the year from $252.9 million last year. For the quarter, the unit saw a profit of $50.9 million, up from $30.3 million seen in the fourth quarter of 2014. The profit increase was driven by improved operating efficiencies.

Global Finishes Mixed

Meanwhile, the company’s Global Finishes Group posted a sales decrease of 7.9 percent for the year, to reach $1.92 billion.  In the fourth quarter, the company saw a decrease of 9.5 percent to $454.8 million compared to the same period a year ago.

Unfavorable currency translation took a toll, decreasing net sales 7.5 percent and 7.1 percent in the year and quarter, respectively.

Sherwin-Williams said profit for the segment was essentially flat—$201.9 million for 2015, compared to $201.1 million last year—due primarily to decreasing raw material costs and good cost control partially offset by unfavorable currency translation rate changes and a gain on an early termination of a customer agreement in the third quarter 2014.

For the quarter, however, the Global Finishes Group saw profits rise to $50.6 million from $39 million last year.

Foreign currency translation rate changes decreased segment profit $26.5 million in the year and $4.9 million in the quarter.

Latin America Group Takes Hit

The company’s Latin America Coatings Group saw the largest decreases in sales and profit.

“The [segment] continues to manage through the negative effects of currency devaluation and weak end market demand in some geographies by raising selling prices and good cost control,” according to Morikis.

The segment’s net sales were $631.0 million for the year, a dip of 18.2 percent. For the quarter, sales were $158.7 million, a decrease of 23.5 percent from the same year-ago period.

Profit for the Latin America Coatings Group was $18.5 million compared to $40.5 million posted last year. The fourth quarter profit was $2.8 million, down from $13.0 million last year.

Outlook

In a forecast for its first quarter of 2016, Morikis said the company anticipates a sales increase in the “low single-digit percentage” range compared to the first quarter of 2015.

He forecast net income per share for the first quarter of $1.50 to $1.65 per share, compared to $1.38 per share in 2015.

For its full-year 2016, the company is anticipating a sales increase in the “low single-digit percentage range.” The forecast for net income was raised to a range of $12.20 to $12.40 per share, up from $11.16 per share earned in 2015

Two of 24 pre-cast concrete spans that will carry an elevated train for Australia’s largest public transportation project have cracked less than a year after they were installed.

Transport for NSW—which confirmed the cracking to the Sydney Morning Herald after the newspaper inquired about the problem—said last week there should be no delay in the overall construction of the AU$8.3 billion (US$5.7 billion) Sydney Metro NorthWest project. The system is due to open in early 2019.

“The rectification of the cracking may result in these two spans being replaced,” said Tom Gellibrand, Sydney Metro acting program director in an emailed statement to the newspaper. “This is a straightforward construction process.”

Project Overview

The section, known as the Skytrain, is one of three major parts of the project. One of the other components is a system of tunnels that also will carry trains in Australia’s largest public transportation project. The other is building and running the trains themselves

Two gantry cranes are being used to assemble about 1,200 pre-cast segments up to the level of 130 concrete piers. The segments then form spans between the piers, and are partly held in place by steel cords that run through the segments. The spans have an average length of about 40 meters (43.7 yards), the newspaper said.

Political Criticism

The news of the cracking didn’t sit will with a political group called The Greens nor with the workers on the project.

Mehreen Faruqi, spokeswoman for The Greens transport, told the newspaper that the problems in the project were the “hallmarks of an infrastructure program where the public sector has been hollowed out of engineering expertise, and is unable to effectively oversee and supervise project delivery.”

A source for Skytrain also said morale has been low on the Skytrain team as a result of the problems.

“Most of the people that are there are completely disillusioned,” the source told the newspaper.

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With a gushing flow visited by millions each year, it seems nothing could shut off the splash of Niagara Falls—except maybe bridge construction.

Officials in charge of the international falls and the park that surrounds them are considering a plan that will dewater the U.S. side of the world-renowned cascades. If ultimately approved, the American Falls could shut down—or at least have its flow diverted to the Canadian side.

“Dewatering is expected initially (to) be a tourism draw (a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the falls and river channel without water),” according to a New York state-issued design. The report also said the novelty could wear off eventually and hurt park attendance.

Bridge Replacement

State officials have been moving to replace the 1900-1901 bridges since 2004 when they were found to have deteriorated to the point where they were closed, according to the Niagara Gazette. Temporary bridges were built above the existing structures.

Those temporary fixes have preserved pedestrian and bicycle access to Goat Island, but they lack the aesthetic appeal of the stone-faced originals and restrict views of the rapids, the report said. Meanwhile, the original bridges continue to crumble.

About 85 percent of the Niagara River flows over Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side of the border, according to CNN. The rest of the river water goes over American Falls in New York.

To “dewater” the American Falls, officials would build a temporary cofferdam that would redirect the entire river flow to Horseshoe Falls, CNN noted.

“Dewatering is necessary for two reasons,” the report said. “The existing 115-year old bridges need to be demolished. The river channel must be dewatered in order to demolish and remove the bridges.

“(And) the piers and abutments for the replacement bridges must be constructed ‘in the dry,’ to allow for safe construction procedures and to ensure that the new foundations are firmly anchored to bedrock.”

Officials from the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Albany; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and the state Department of Transportation agree that if a third option—to seal off the flow to the American Falls—is chosen, the project would not begin for several years, the daily newspaper said.

Dry Before

It’s not the first time the water in Niagara Falls has run dry. For some, it could be a twice-in-a-lifetime event, said John Percy, CEO of the Niagara Tourism & Convention Corporation. Percy told CNN that the Army Corps of Engineers dewatered the falls in 1969 to test the falls’ stability.

According to Percy, dewatering the falls could be “an exciting—even an enormous—marketing opportunity for us.”

But that depends on which method construction crews end up using to rebuild two 115-year-old bridges connecting the U.S. mainland with Goat Island—a green space located between American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls.

According to the report, one scenario would be to leave the American and Bridal Veil Falls dry for five months (August through December). The second would require a nine-month dry spell: from April through December.

If either of those methods are chosen, crews would build a cofferdam in the river from the tip of Goat Island to the mainland. That would shut down the water flow in the river bed and provide a dry area to demolish and replace the deteriorating concrete arch bridges that span the river rapids.

The cofferdam would be in about the same location as the 1969 structure—which spanned 600 feet and consisted of 28,000 tons of rock and earth—when the falls were dewatered last.

Resident Reaction

Niagara Falls author and historian Paul Gromosiak told the Niagara Gazette that he remembers speaking with tourists after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed the 1969 dewatering.

“People were astounded at the site and the lack of the sound,” said Gromosiak. “Those who had been there before missed the sound of the falls, not just the beauty but the sound.”

But Gromosiak, like others, has been urging officials to find another way to do the bridge work if they can.

“It’s kind of sad that it will be because people won’t be able to come and see it and they won’t be able to see how pretty it is,” Kalie Pries, a resident who lives near the falls, told a CNN affiliate. “Some people say it’s spiritual when they come and see it. But I guess they have to do what they have to do.”

How soon any of it would begin remains unknown. A parks department spokesperson told a CNN affiliate that the project does not have a budget nor funding yet, and public hearings on the issue were to begin this week.