SunCoke Energy Gets Positive Reception

Since January 17,SunCoke Energy has been independent of its parent Sunoco.The coking coal miner and producer of metallurgical coke was viewed positively on Wall Street.Key Banc Capital Markets initiated coverage of the spinoff with a Buy rating, and Oppenheimer initiated with an Outperform.Both analysts gave SunCoke a 15 dollar a share price target.
SunCoke originated in Virginia in the early 1960s.Today it works two mines in Virginia and West Virginia with more than 100 million tons of proven and probable coking coal reserves.This coal is fed into five coke plants in Virginia,Indiana,Ohio,Illinois and Vitoria,Brazil,making SunCoke the largest independent producer of high quality metallurgical coke in the Americas,with a total U.S. cokemaking capacity of about 4.2 million tons a year,and a global capacity of more than 5 million tons a year.This solid state carbon product is provided to integrated steelmakers with blast furnace technology.For example,SunCoke's new Middletown,Ohio plant will be supplying AK Steel with its coke needs.
Besides producing metallurgical coke,the plants utilize heat recovery technology to make steam for electric power generation.All applicable environmental standards are being met or exceeded at its coke plants,the company says.
Frederick "Fritz" Henderson,an old General Motors hand,is CEO of SunCoke.Mr.Henderson has an MBA from Harvard Business School and is a Trustee of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
SunCoke Energy(SXC)

What Goldman Sachs Does

Goldman Sachs has been dominating the business news,but many may not understand what the company actually does.Professor Samuel Hayes of the Harvard Business School says Goldman Sachs affects all of our lives.It serves as brokerage and researcher for pension funds;raises money for cities and towns;facilitates new issues of stock for companies we work for or invest in;and engages in trading for its own profit.
Goldman Sachs has a lot of influence through its alumni in government.Two of them went on to become U.S Treasury Secretary,but the alumni are active all over the world.Professor Hayes is sure there are elements of both resentment and actual misconduct fueling the current furor over the company.Goldman Sachs should know that the perception of this behavior is damaging.They will have to live with it for a long time,in the professor's opinion.
Goldman Sachs is 140 years old.It employs 35,000 people worldwide.In recent years,its proprietary trading has grown in importance,which has been criticized by some as being less than socially useful.