The Pittsburgh-based company that gives Ford Motor Co. cars their color and sells sealants to the likes of Boeing Co. and Airbus SE anticipated an inflationary environment early this year, Chief Executive Officer Michael McGarry said in an interview. PPG was first to raise prices once, then a second time, he said.
“What we’re obviously studying now is the need to be out with a third set of price increases,” McGarry said. “Inflation is across-the-board, it’s obvious” and customers “don’t have a lot of good ways to counter the argument that we need to have price relief.”
With customers in the construction, consumer product and industrial sectors, plus manufacturing facilities and affiliates in more than 70 countries, PPG has a wide window into how the global economy is functioning. It’s feeling the pinch from the prices of oil, freight and distribution going up and raw materials running scarce. McGarry, 62, quibbles with the idea this is a temporary phenomenon related to reopenings from pandemic lockdowns.
