Sector Deals With COVID Ups, Downs

As a senior vice president at Bank of America for an area that includes the San Fernando Valley, Redonna Carpenter-Woods keeps a close eye on manufacturing companies.

How these businesses that make products from food to beer to aerospace parts are doing during the coronavirus pandemic depends on the sector they are in, she told the Business Journal.Aerospace is slightly down, but more on the commercial aviation side than on the military side, where defense contractors are doing well, Carpenter-Woods said.

“The commercial airline side of manufacturing has struggled and continues to struggle,” she added.Plastics, beverages and food processing are all up, while packaging is up-and-down, Carpenter-Wood continued.

While Bank of America takes a broad approach on the economic impact of the manufacturing sector, Carpenter-Woods said that she has very specific industries that her team focuses on. In addition to the San Fernando Valley, her coverage area also includes the Conejo, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.Among essential businesses, few are more essential than food manufacturers, of which there are some in the Valley.

Looking back to March when the pandemic started, it was difficult to find some food items in grocery stores. The bank’s clients in food processing were doing everything they could to get products to market, Carpenter-Woods said.

From her perspective, she said that food was a necessity, and it was a requirement to the manufacturers to keep up production.

“They pivoted and in some cases they started sourcing from as many suppliers as they could to meet those demands,” Carpenter-Woods said.Beverage manufacturing in the Valley was up because of the lack of bottled water at stores early in the outbreak and so consumer were looking for the next best option to drink as an alternative.“That is what was driving the demand for our clients in the San Fernando Valley,” Carpenter-Woods said. “It is to just be able to get whatever source of beverage they were producing out as quickly as they could.”She called California a unique market in that low-sugar drinks became a big thing during the pandemic. Those clients making low-sugar products got them out very quickly, she said.“It was spotty, but we saw a lot of uptick in our beverage clients,” Carpenter-Woods added.As an institution, Bank of America has focused on the financial stability of its clients and has offered best practices around credit management, cash management and working capital.

Some of those practices included performing sensitivity models and stress tests for manufacturers to see how long their cash would last, Carpenter-Woods said.

“I think this has been a good solid partnership that we continue to build as bankers in this environment,” she added.