It said the pest control business was a high margin operation, and the troubled Citylink parcels business could be through the worst: We think that contract wins and cost reduction will take Citylink back to profitability in the second half of 2012.
One usually pays for distinction, and there is nothing distinct about a neighborhood where new businesses are national chains or safe, high-margin operations.
Even large Indian BPOs such as Firstsource Solutions are offshoring their outsourcing, leaving higher-margin operations such as accounting in India and opening up their own call centers in the Philippines.
"As oil prices began their long, sickening decline in the early Eighties, Arco set about reorganizing the company to suit the new price environment — selling off low-margin operations everywhere and buying in a good 30% of its shares.
(Other revenue came from Groupon's Goods business, a lower-margin operation that competes with Amazon).
The bank also handles most of the transactions for the prefectural government, a low-margin operation.
"We are still losing money, but if you look at our underlying cost-cutting, restructuring, supply chain overhaul, gross margins, operation expense improvements, I would defy anyone to not say, 'Wow.
The relatively high-margin operation at Kinray would make it an attractive target for McKesson, Cardinal Health or AmerisourceBergen if any of them wanted a stronger regional foothold.
Ford now expects a profit margin on operations in North America of between 8% and 9% next year, down from a previously expected 10%.
"The proposed deal combines Xstrata's high-margin mining operations with Glencore's low-margin sales and marketing business," said Charles Cooper, a mining analyst at Oriel Securities in London.
The move is meant to help the two companies focus on their individual mandates, freeing ConocoPhillips to invest more in its higher-margin exploration operations.
