Topic: How To Invest

Pat: What do you think of Caterpillar's prospects? It has a lot of international business. Thanks.

Article Excerpt

Caterpillar Inc., $82.19, symbol CAT on New York (Shares outstanding: 646.6 million; Market cap: $53.1 billion; www.caterpillar.com), is the world’s largest maker of earth-moving equipment, including tractors, scrapers, graders, compactors, loaders and pipe layers. It also makes lift trucks and diesel and turbine engines. The company gets 70% of its sales from outside the U.S. Its clients are mainly in the mining, logging, farming, construction and oil and gas industries. Caterpillar sells its machines through a worldwide dealer network. It also provides dealers and customers with equipment financing and insurance. In July 2011, the company acquired Milwaukee-based Bucyrus International, which makes equipment that is used for mining and in the development of the oil sands. This purchase made Caterpillar the world’s largest mining machinery supplier. Caterpillar is now rebranding all of Bucyrus’s equipment under the Caterpillar name. The company paid $7.4 billion in cash for Bucyrus. If you include $1.6 billion of Bucyrus’s debt, the total purchase price was $9.0 billion. In November 2011, Caterpillar…