Corning Reorganizes Operating Structure to Drive Growth
Corning Incorporated GLW yesterday communicated that it is reorganizing its operating structure after extensive analysis and leadership review. Designed to unlock opportunities for valuable synergies, the new structure aligns executive management and business teams around five Market-Access Platforms (MAPs) — Mobile Consumer Electronics, Optical Communications, Automotive, Life Sciences, and Display. The company’s shares moved up 4.5% in the last trading session.
Within each MAP, Corning harnesses a combination of three core capabilities as well as four manufacturing and engineering platforms to bring value to customers. The MAPs also provide a strong growth mechanism for Corning, creating opportunities to reuse assets and capabilities developed for customers in one market-ecosystem to serve customers in another.
This strategy has contributed significantly to Corning’s strong performance over the last few years. The move enables the company to capture more customer insights, further leverage its distribution channels and open up new potentials for innovation with industry frontrunners. This, in turn, will spur growth by triggering the full power of the company’s cohesive portfolio.
In addition, management has created a new leadership position that will drive operational excellence. Eric Musser, a 34-year Corning veteran, has been appointed to the expanded role of president and chief operating officer (COO) with immediate effect. Eric will continue to oversee Corning’s international regions as well as global manufacturing and supply management functions. The MAP organizations will report to Eric in his role as COO.
That said, there will be no changes to Corning’s financial reporting segments under the new operating structure. The company is scheduled to report first-quarter 2020 results on Apr 28, before the opening bell.
Corning is optimistic regarding its 2020-2023 Strategy & Growth Framework goals. Through 2023, it expects to deliver 6-8% compound annual sales growth and 12-15% compound annual earnings per share growth, while investing $10-$12 billion in RD&E, capital as well as mergers and acquisitions. It plans to expand operating margin and ROIC, and deliver $8-$10 billion to shareholders, including an annual dividend per share increase of at least 10%. To achieve its goals, the company expects to add $3-$4 billion in annual sales and improve profitability by the end of 2023.
Corning has a trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 4.9%, on average. It has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 7.6% compared with 17.6% of the industry. The stock has lost 27.1% compared with the industry’s decline of 16.7% in the past six months.
Corning currently has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).
Some better-ranked stocks in the industry are Ooma, Inc. OOMA, Viavi Solutions Inc. VIAV and Plantronics, Inc. PLT. While Ooma sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Viavi and Plantronics carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Ooma has a trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 124%, on average.
Viavi has a trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 11.7%, on average. The company’s earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the last four quarters.
Plantronics has a trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 27.7%, on average. The company’s earnings topped the consensus estimate in three of the last four quarters.
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