Firefighters hose down flames as a home burns in in Los Angeles as more wild fires struck California this week. The state's biggest power firm filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and has said it could take a decade to repair local grids. AP Photo.
Firefighters hose down flames as a home burns in in Los Angeles as more wild fires struck California this week. The state's biggest power firm filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and has said it could take a decade to repair local grids. AP Photo.
Firefighters hose down flames as a home burns in in Los Angeles as more wild fires struck California this week. The state's biggest power firm filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and has said it could take a decade to repair local grids. AP Photo.
Firefighters hose down flames as a home burns in in Los Angeles as more wild fires struck California this week. The state's biggest power firm filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and has said it co

Head of generators business eyes windfall from California's ‘decade of darkness’


  • English
  • Arabic

(Bloomberg) -- A “decade of darkness” in California is offering a huge opportunity for the sale of generators that keep the lights on when the power grid goes down.

That’s the view of Aaron Jagdfeld, chief executive officer of Generac Holdings, the Wisconsin-based maker of generators. Mr Jagdfeld cited a comment by PG&E Corporation’s chief executive earlier this month that it could take ten years to shore up its grid enough to ratchet down the power shutoffs it’s using to reduce the chances its equipment will ignite wildfires during a wind storm.

The bottom line for Generac: $100 million to $200 million of annual revenue, perhaps as soon as 2022, Mr Jagdfeld said in an interview on Friday in New York. While California, with its generally mild climate, wasn’t a big market for Generac in the past, the company is now gearing up a sales force and a marketing push to make it one in the future.

“It is a situation where we see a long-term upside for building awareness for our products,” Mr Jagdfeld said. Generac expects California will get about $1 million of the $10 million spent this year on infomercials, he said, and will open an office in Sacramento for training, inventory and retail next year.

Generac’s shares hit an all-time high on Monday. The company was up 4.3 per cent to $94.58 at 12:28pm in New York.

There are some issues, he said. The state’s tough regulatory profile, for instance, means that some of Generac’s present equipment may not meet environmental guidelines.

The company, which expects about $2 billion in revenue this year, works with about 6,000 electricians nationwide, Mr Jagdfeld said. At the start of the year, there were only 100 in California. Now that number has risen to 250, he said, and the company is adding about 30 new ones a month.

“The interest level in California has been pretty material,” said Stanley Elliott, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. “You are going to continue to have these rolling brownouts.”

In addition to the push into California, Mr Jagdfeld said the company’s recent acquisitions of Pika Energy and Neurio Technology may have helped drive up the company’s stock. Since May 1, Generac’s shares have risen 65 per cent to $90.71 per share. One company makes products that let consumers monitor the power they use, the other allows homeowners to direct power from their solar arrays.

While they aren’t included in Mr Jagdfeld’s $100 million to $200 million goal for revenue in California, they represent “a nice, natural fit into our existing product lines, that we could start to forge a position in the home, in the utility panel,” he said.

The National Archives, Abu Dhabi

Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.

Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en

Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Jetour T1 specs

Engine: 2-litre turbocharged

Power: 254hp

Torque: 390Nm

Price: From Dh126,000

Available: Now

The biog

Favourite book: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Favourite holiday destination: Spain

Favourite film: Bohemian Rhapsody

Favourite place to visit in the UAE: The beach or Satwa

Children: Stepdaughter Tyler 27, daughter Quito 22 and son Dali 19

Crops that could be introduced to the UAE

1: Quinoa 

2. Bathua 

3. Amaranth 

4. Pearl and finger millet 

5. Sorghum

Global state-owned investor ranking by size

1.

United States

2.

China

3.

UAE

4.

Japan

5

Norway

6.

Canada

7.

Singapore

8.

Australia

9.

Saudi Arabia

10.

South Korea

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

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'Panga'

Directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari

Starring Kangana Ranaut, Richa Chadha, Jassie Gill, Yagya Bhasin, Neena Gupta

Rating: 3.5/5

Profile

Company name: Marefa Digital

Based: Dubai Multi Commodities Centre

Number of employees: seven

Sector: e-learning

Funding stage: Pre-seed funding of Dh1.5m in 2017 and an initial seed round of Dh2m in 2019

Investors: Friends and family 

From Zero

Artist: Linkin Park

Label: Warner Records

Number of tracks: 11

Rating: 4/5

Company%20profile
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ENGLAND%20SQUAD
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Honeymoonish
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US Industrial Market figures, Q1 2017

Vacancy Rate 5.4%

Markets With Positive Absorption 85.7 per cent

New Supply 55 million sq ft

New Supply to Inventory 0.4 per cent

Under Construction 198.2 million sq ft

(Source: Colliers)

Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
  • Priority access to new homes from participating developers
  • Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
  • Flexible payment plans from developers
  • Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
  • DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates