Exide Technologies fka EXTC

[Renegades17]

Not from what I can tell. They viewed themselves as being internally hedged by being vertically integrated. By that I mean that they had smelting operations, like at Vernon, where they'd take used batteries and recover lead for use in manufacturing new batteries. They ran into problems since the termination of the Walmart relationship as Walmart was an important source of used batteries.

What they should have done is more proactively hedged their lead exposure once Walmart terminated the relationship. ENS hedges its lead and consequently doesn't experience the same level of margin volatility.

I hope the restructuring guys running the company now put in place a better method to manage lead costs. I am a little discouraged that the former CFO, who by all accounts seems incompetent, is still in place. I hope he gets booted once the final POR is approved. He does not deserve to retain his position in my opinion.