(By Balaseshan) Ball Corp. (NYSE: BLL), a supplier of metal packaging for beverage, food and household products industries, said David Taylor, president and CEO of Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. is retiring at the end of March.
Taylor is retiring after a 29-year career with the company. Succeeding Taylor will be Robert Strain, who currently is chief operating officer of Ball Aerospace.
Strain will focus on continuing the growth of Ball Aerospace and solidifying the market gains achieved during Taylor's tenure. He joined Ball Aerospace in March 2012.
Strain has served as director of NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center and has held leadership roles at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Orbital Sciences Corp. and Fairchild Space and Defense.
"Dave Taylor led a transformation of our aerospace business into an agile, high-performing aerospace and defense enterprise, guiding its entry into new customer agencies and growing our aerospace segment sales and profits significantly since 2002," said John Hayes, president and chief executive officer of Ball Corp.
On January 31, the company reported fourth-quarter earnings of $60.6 million or $0.39 per share, down from $77.5 million or $0.47 per share last year. Comparable earnings per share (EPS) rose to $0.64 from $0.48. Net sales increased 3% to $2.11 billion.
Earnings from aerospace and technologies segment were $24.2 million on sales of $245.0 million for the fourth quarter, compared to $18.0 million on sales of $185.1 million in the same period last year.
On January 30, the company said its board has raised quarterly cash dividend by 30% to $0.13 per share. The dividend is payable March 15, to shareholders of record on March 1.
BLL is trading down 1.49% at $44.91 on Monday. The stock has been trading between $38.39 and $46.99 for the past 52 weeks.