The Fire Sprinkler Roundtable

We, like many of you, are in the process of assembling our Budget for 2011. Naturally, we need to provide our Finance Committee with our forecast for the balance of 2010 based on 8 months actual revenue and expense and our budget for 2011. All indications suggest that we may indeed have reached the bottom of the downturn…contractor dues to both NFSA and our Industry Funds appear to have stabilized over the last three months and manufacturers’ sprinkler shipments have shown a slight uptick  in every quarter since the beginning of the year. While construction spending is at an all time low, the strength of sprinkler requirements in building codes should not be overlooked. We continue to protect a larger number of buildings from a smaller inventory being erected than ever before in our history. In speaking to contractors from coast to coast and border to border I’m being told that while there is work to bid, the number of bidders on a job make pricing very competitive. Balance sheets at every level remain very strong as we have indicated in previous reports. Organic growth, unfortunately, is not responsible for this strength. Cutbacks and greater productivity within every business is  making “cash” the king. In my view, once the consumer begins spending, we may see some investment in capital expenditures.  There are still headwinds to overcome but they don’t appear to be as strong as they were 12 months ago. Anyone want to share their views, comment here.