Crude oil and natural gas hit peak prices in mid-2014, with U.S. crude oil hitting $107 per barrel in June of last year. Since then, prices have fallen precipitously, reaching a low of less than $50 per barrel for U.S. crude in late January before rising somewhat in recent months and then falling...
The oil and gas industry is driven by the price of its commodity, fossil fuels, which varies—sometimes dramatically. Although huge swings in value are rare, the recent 50 percent drop in the price of oil (with some analysts predicting a drop to $20 per barrel), combined with historically low...
In the past five years nonconventional U.S. oil production has increased more than six-fold and by the end of 2014 had achieved the highest production levels of U.S. crude in 41 years. This explosive growth was fueled by the doubling of exploration and production (E&P) capex in extraction from...
The current chapter on the energy industry would be incomplete without insights from the field. The energy boom and subsequent bust led to some fairly extreme situations caused by some of the unique facets of the energy industry, the locations in which the energy boom played out, and the...
As this article is written, the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil (around $59.48/barrel as of June 30) remains 44 percent below a year ago, notwithstanding a recovery from the multiyear lows seen early this year. 1 While some observers speculate that this precipitous decline is the...
As many in the turnaround and distressed space know, the total number of bankruptcy filings continues to languish. In Q1 2015, business bankruptcy filings were down more than 3 percent from Q4 2014 and 19 percent from Q1 2014. 1 In fact, Q1 2015’s filing count continues to mirror the lowest...
The food processing industry is consistently an active category for M&A activity, and changes in consumer preferences have been driving the activity level even higher in recent years. The Food Institute reported in July 2015 that it had recorded 206 transactions, year to date. Even a slight...
The retail industry was once dependent on store count and improving same-store sales to drive growth. Fast forwarding to 2015, when Amazon is ranked among the top 10 U.S. retailers, the most widely used buzzword of the year is “omnichannel,” and a retailer could potentially abandon generations of...
Against the backdrop of a U.S. retail landscape that some estimate provides over 50 square feet of retail space per person, 1 store closures remain an almost daily feature of retail news. From department stores to fast fashion, retailers across the U.S. are grappling with the challenge of deciding...
Today’s retailers face unprecedented challenges in the marketplace as they confront the evolution of not only customer shopping patterns, but also how retail is defined. Historically, top tier retailers thrived because they had the best locations and offered desirable merchandise at a great value...
