Business briefs: Trucker’s strike disrupts cargo; Brookwood Cabinets changes ownership | Business

SEOUL, South Korea – A weeklong strike by thousands of truckers in South Korea has triggered major disruptions in cargo transport and production that have caused $1.2 billion in damages, officials said Monday.

An extended strike may eventually worsen the global supply chains already battered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s pandemic curbs. But the strike’s impact has so far been largely limited to South Korea’s domestic industry.

The world’s 10th largest economy hasn’t reported any major disruption of exports of key items like semiconductors.

The fourth round of negotiations between the striking truckers and government officials Sunday failed to reach a deal.

Cabinet business in new hands

Bob Kennedy, chief operating officer of Brookwood Cabinets, has acquired the 73-year-old manufacturing company from its second owners, Lynn Reecer and Jeff Hodgson, who died in November 2020, according to a news release.

Reecer and Hodgson acquired Brookwood in 2017 after original family owner Gene Ruse died.

Kennedy was public works director for the city of Fort Wayne from 2006 to 2017. He and his director of sales, Kira Blacketor, have quadrupled the company’s sales under the guidance of Reecer and Hodgson.

They are now the fifth largest distributor of Dura Supreme cabinetry and were named Best Newcomer by the SEN Design Group, a national trade organization.