3M expects R&D spend to give it competitive edge

CHICAGO: 3M Co will increase spending on research, product lines and acquisitions next year in an effort to emerge from the recession farther ahead of weaker competitors, Chief Executive Officer George Buckley said.

3M maintained this year's research and development funding at about $1.2 billion in the economic slump and will spend as much as $100 million in 2010 to advance product lines and research, partly to hire 60 to 80 employees with doctorates, Buckley said in an interview. Capital expenditures will rise as much as 15 percent to about $1.05 billion.

"I knew that if we kept on investing in R&D, and we kept it pretty much flat, that increasingly as other weaker companies couldn't maybe spend so much in R&D that there would be a separation," Buckley said at 3M's St. Paul, Minnesota, headquarters. It's "prosperity of the fittest".