@shifty Is Huntsmann one of the board members to go? From what I have heard he did seem to be able to grasp the seriousness of it all. So if he is gone than who knows how it all plays out.

I had heard Ed Rapp was next in line but he's now gone.

@bgbird68 Yes Ed Rapp is gone but for health reasons. I bet the next CEO is from the outside. The hedg fund managers probably have the next CEO picked out. It probablygoes without saying that the next CEO will not be from Illnois which could be interesting.

Interesting that this is also happening on the same day that John Deere stock price went up $10.38 per share which is over a 13% price increase on one day.

One step closer to no Cat building downtown Peoria. Oh my what's Peoria to do. Sold their souls and end up with nothing but want.

CAT filed an 8K report with the SEC last Thursday. It shows the level of sales decline for July, 2016 vs. May,2016 and June, 2016. phx.corporate-ir.net /phoenix.zhtml?c=924 66&p=irol-SECText&TE XT=aHR0cDovL2Fw

@billybob
I don't know of a Huntsmann or similar name.At this point, I seriously doubt the downtown headquarters will ever happen. More than likely the next CEO will be the bearer of bad news, after Tucson gets built and opened, that is. That will become the de facto "headquarters" in my opinion.
Ed Rapp has ALS and had to retire, which is a shame, because he would have been a good CEO I believe.Not sure what it's going to take, but they have to get Doug out of there. If there were any such thing as accountability at Cat, he would have been gone years ago. My guess is as soon as they have to reduce the dividend, Wall Street will decimate the stock and Dougie will be out.

@shifty I am friends with some retired CAT employees and some people that teach at Univ. of Maryland. They area ll totally convinced that Huntsman and Schwab have a very, very good understanding and grasp of the "entire picture" and are probably encountering resistance and/or massive denial from other board members on some key issues. Huntsman came after CAT realized they needed someone who better understood the country and even spoke some Chinese. As for Schwab, every board she has been on, the co. has done exceedingly well. www.caterpillar.com/ en/company/governanc e/board-of-directors .htmlJON M. HUNTSMAN, JR., 56, former United States Ambassador to China (2009-2011) and former governor of Utah (2005-2009). Other current directorships: Chevron Corporation, Ford Motor Company and Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. Other directorships within the last five years: Huntsman Corporation. Mr. Huntsman has been a director of the Company since 2012.
[Jon M. Huntsman, Jr.]SUSAN C. SCHWAB, 61, is currently a Professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and a Strategic Advisor for Mayer Brown LLP. Prior to her current positions, Ambassador Schwab held various positions including United States Trade Representative (member of the President’s cabinet) and Deputy United States Trade Representative. Other current directorships: FedEx Corporation, Marriott International, Inc. and The Boeing Company. Other directorships within the last five years: none. Ambassador Schwab has been a director of the Company since 2009.

@shifty :I agree that I've never thought the downtown headquarters would be built, but I doubt the new HQ would be Tucson. I heard that the board was divided over staying or relocating the HQ to Milwaukee, and I think Doug was the biggest factor in their plan to stay. Once he's gone, I expect that decision to be revisited.

@shifty :Doug Oberhelman didn't cause the plunge in demand for Caterpillar products. Competitors like Komatsu and John Deere have seen similar issues, and layoffs have mounted. Keeping the company profitable and stockholders satisfied will keep him in the CEO chair until he reaches mandatory retirement in 2018.

@bn13814 No, but let's name the boondoggles that have happened under Doug's tenure:Buying Bucyrus at an enormous premium at a time when it was widely believed/known that mining was on the verge of a serious downturn, if not total freefall. The continued huge goodwill claim is going to crash down eventually, along with the dividend and the share price.Siwei disaster. "Win in China". Somehow due diligence didn't extend to checking whether several hundred millions of dollars of inventory existed. It didn't, whoops. Not to mention the serious accounting red flags that were flat out ignored.
Also China; somehow not recognizing that roughly 30% of the record revenue at the high was tied to an unsustainable Chinese stimulus, which of course ended abruptly.Spending a ton of cash buying assets from Navistar to re-enter the on-highway truck business. One of the few good decisions was to pull out of the deal before they lost their ***.There are plenty, plenty more that aren't public knowledge. Cat is hemorrhaging good long-term experienced employees along with the massive layoffs. Artificially propping up the stock price with accounting trickery and stock buyback isn't going to last forever. I'm not sure what the future holds for Cat, but it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

@billybob Ah, board of directors. I meant division directors, I have heard nothing about the board.

@shifty : You hit the nail on the head right there.

@bgbird68 The PE ratio is ovev55. That is quite high and at some point the chickens will come home to roost. No earnings to back up the stock price. It is about the dividends. Any day now they will pay a dividend. It will be interesting to see what the payout ratio was. It has been running about 87%. That means 13% of net income is going back into the co vs. 87% being paid out to shareholders. They have no breathing room.

@billybob :I swear, it's cognitive dissonance on Wall Street's part to overlook the serious (and obvious) issues. I wonder if Cat's spot as a bellwether makes the market very hesitant to destroy the stock, lest it be the beginning of another meltdown, which is coming one way or the other.