BMW to expand S.C. plant, add 1,000 jobs

BMW said Monday it will invest an additional $600 million to expand its South Carolina plant, creating 1,000 new jobs over the next four years.

CEO Harald Krueger’s announcement coincided with the German automaker’s celebration of 25 years of manufacturing in the state. BMW, which has already invested $8 billion in South Carolina, also unveiled its 2018 BMW X3, a compact sports vehicle expected to be available in November. It will be built at the plant in Greer alongside the BMW X4, X5 and X6.

The expansion will boost its workforce to more than 10,000 people. BMW will separately invest $200 million over five years on workforce training, Krueger said. The company touts the South Carolina plant as its largest worldwide, producing more than 411,000 X models last year. About 70 percent of BMWs made there are exported to more than 140 countries.

Last year, the plant reached a milestone with its 2 millionth exported BMW. The overwhelming majority of its exports leave through the Charleston port.

“Our relationship with South Carolina has been built upon decades of professionalism, mutual trust and respect — and goes far beyond just building great cars,” Krueger said.

During the past two decades, hedge fund mogul Daniel Loeb established himself as one of the biggest activist investors around. Now, he has set his sights on one of Europe’s largest corporate citizens: Nestlé, the global food giant.

In a letter to investors sent on Sunday, his Third Point hedge fund argued that the Swiss conglomerate — whose wares range from candy to baby food to pet food — should sell its stake in L’Oréal and sell off nonessential operations as part of a broad shake-up of the company.

It is the latest ambitious move by activist investors to shake up the giants of the corporate world. Flush with cash from investors, these funds have taken stakes in ever-bigger companies, hoping to goad them into selling themselves or breaking themselves up to improve their stock prices.

Jana Partners, for instance, prodded change at Whole Foods Market. Earlier this month, the grocery store chain announced that it was selling itself to Amazon for $13.4 billion. And Trian Fund Management took a $3.5 billion stake in Procter & Gamble, as the consumer products behemoth has sought a way to improve stagnant sales.

Third Point disclosed that it owns about 40 million shares in Nestlé, a stake that amounts to about $3.5 billion in stock. That would make the hedge fund the Swiss company’s sixth-largest shareholder, according to Standard & Poor’s Global market Intelligence.

Behind Third Point’s investment in Nestlé is a conviction that the Swiss conglomerate must do more to reshape its product portfolio and adapt to changing consumer tastes and competition from smaller and more local brands. The hedge fund argued that the company’s earnings per share have not meaningfully improved during the past five years.

Shares in Nestlé have risen nearly 15 percent over the past 12 months, trailing fellow consumer conglomerate Unilever but outpacing other food companies like Mondelez and Kraft Heinz.

“Third Point invested in Nestlé because we recognized a familiar set of conditions that make it ripe for improvement and change,” the hedge fund wrote in its investor letter. “It is rare to find a business of Nestlé’s quality with so many avenues for improvement.”