Hot Consumer Service Companies To Invest In 2015

Hot Consumer Service Companies To Invest In 2015: Koppers Holdings Inc (KOP)

Koppers Holdings Inc. (Koppers), incorporated on November 12, 2004,is a global provider of carbon compounds and commercial wood treatment products and services. The Company's products are used in a variety of niche applications in a diverse range of end-markets, including the aluminum, railroad, specialty chemical, utility, concrete and steel industries. The Company serves its customers through a global manufacturing and distribution networks, with manufacturing facilities located in the United States, Australia, China, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Denmark. The Company operates in two business segments: Carbon Materials & Chemicals and railroads & Utility Products.

The Company's operations are, to a substantial extent, vertically integrated. Through the Company's Carbon Materials & Chemicals business, the Company processes coal tar into a variety of products, including carbon pitch, creosote, naphthalene and phthalic anhydride, which are intermediat e materials necessary in the production of aluminum, the pressure treatment of wood, the production of high-strength concrete, and the production of plasticizers and specialty chemicals, respectively. Through the Company's Railroad & Utility Products business, the Company believes that the Company is thesupplier of railroad crossties to the North American railroads.

Carbon Materials & Chemicals

Carbon pitch, naphthalene, and creosote are produced through the distillation of coal tar, a by-product generated through the processing of coal into coke for use in steel and iron manufacturing. Coal tar distillation involves the conversion of coal tar into a variety of intermediate chemical products in processes beginning with distillation. During the distillation process, heat and vacuum are utilized to separate coal tar into three primary components: carbon pitch (approximately 50%), chemical oils (approximately 20%) and creos! ote (approximately 30%).

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The Company's Carbon Materials & Chemicals business! (CM&C) manufactures principal products, including carbon pitch, a critical raw material used in the production of aluminum and steel; naphthalene, used for the production of phthalic anhydride and as a surfactant in the production of concrete; phthalic anhydride, used in the production of plasticizers, polyester resins and alkyd paints, and creosote and carbon black feedstock, used in the treatment of wood or as a feedstock in the production of carbon black. The Company also uses naphthalene as a feedstock in the manufacture of phthalic anhydride. The primary markets for phthalic anhydride are in the production of plasticizers, unsaturated polyester resins and alkyd resins. The Company is a producer of carbon pitch for the aluminum industry.

Creosote is used as a commercial wood treatment chemical to preserve railroad crossties and lumber, utility poles and piling. The majority of the Company's domestically produced creosote is sold to its Railroad & Utility Pr oducts business. In Australia, China and Europe, creosote is sold primarily into the carbon black market for use as a feedstock in the production of carbon black. In Europe and China creosote is also sold to wood treaters. The Company's wood treating plants in the United States purchase substantially all of their creosote from the Company's tar distillation plants.

Other products include the sale of refined tars, benzole and specialty chemicals. The Company's CM&C business manufactures its primary products and sells them directly to the Company's global customer base under long-term contracts or through purchase orders negotiated by its regional sales personnel and coordinated through its global marketing group in the United States. The Company's nine coal tar distillation facilities including joint ventures and four carbon materials terminals give the Company the ability to offer customers multiple sourcing and a consistent s! upply of ! products..

Rail road & Utility Products

The Company's Railroad ! & Utility! Products business (R&UP) sells treated and untreated wood products, rail joint bars and services primarily to the railroad and public utility markets in the United States and Australia. The Company also produces concrete crossties, a complementary product to its wood treatment business, through a joint venture in the United States.

Railroad products include procuring and treating items such as crossties, switch ties and various types of lumber used for railroad bridges and crossings. Railroad products also include manufacturing and selling rail joint bars, which are steel bars used to join rails together for railroads. Utility products include transmission and distribution poles for electric and telephone utilities and piling used in industrial foundations, beach housing, docks and piers. The R&UP business operates 13 wood treating plants, one rail joint bar manufacturing facility, one co-generation facility and 13 pole distribution yards located throughout the United States and Australia. The Company's network of plants is strategically located near timber supplies to enable the Company to access raw materials and service customers effectively. In addition, the Company's crosstie treating plants are typically adjacent to its railroad customers' track lines, and its pole distribution yards are typically located near its utility customers.

In the United States, hardwood lumber is procured by the Company from hundreds of small sawmills throughout the northeastern, midwestern and southern areas of the country. The crossties are shipped via rail car or trucked directly to one of the Company's crosstie treating plants, all of which are on line with a railroad. The crossties are either air-stacked for a period of six to twelve months or artificially dried by a process called boultonizing. Once dried, the crossties are pressure treated with creosote, a product of the Company's C! M&C busine! ss.

The Company's R&UP b usiness' customer base is the North American Class I railroa! d market,! which buys approximately 80% of all crossties produced in the United States and Canada. The Company also has relationships with many of the approximately 550 short-line and regional rail lines. This also forms the customer base for the Company's rail joint bar products. The railroad crosstie market is a mature market with approximately 23 million replacement crossties (both wood and non-wood) purchased during 2012. The Company supplies all seven of the North American Class I railroads and have contracts with six of them. The Company treats poles with a variety of preservatives, including pentachlorophenol, copper chrome arsenates and creosotes .In the United States the market for utility pole products is characterized by a number of small producers selling into a price-sensitive industry. The utility pole market is fragmented domestically, with over 200 investor-owned electric and telephone utilities and 2,900 smaller municipal utilities and rural electric associations.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jeremy Bowman]

  What: Shares of Koppers Holdings (NYSE: KOP  ) were looking rusty today, falling as much as 12% after the company cut its outlook for the current quarter.

source from Top Stocks To Buy For 2015:http://www.topstocksforum.com/hot-consumer-service-companies-to-invest-in-2015.html