Remington close to default on debt

[Pistolero]

Apparently too many unsold guns. Gun sales have been through the roof in the last decade, seems like no new gun bans on the horizon has lowered sales.

Hope they hang, on. They have purchased Marlin and Savage recently, not good if they manage to take down both other companies with them.

Bill

 

[RicinYakima]

George Soros, the mega-billionaire, owns the holding company. It will not be for fiscal reasons if they close. Do your research on the net.

 

[Ian]

Without steering too far into the political realm...Ric nailed it.

Let's not forget about H&R, an earlier victim of the same operation.

Colt did themselves in I'm afraid, but there may be more to it than we know. What did you say, Bill? "Snatched defeat from the arms of victory"?

 

[fiver]

they are just gonna do a re-structure, maybe under some type of bankruptcy.
IMO they were planning on selling some of the off shoot companys at a profit but when those companys aren't showing a profit...[shrug]
I'd maybe miss some of their bought up company products, but I haven't bought anything from them directly [maybe some brass?] in jeezus?? 20 years.

 

[Intheshop]

Firearms business is a complicated mess.Politics is such a huge part of it that,for me at least.... takes the "fun" out of meaningful discussion.

Business booms during cyclical"ups",we expand to meet the need.How well we structure this will be tested on the downslope.Which leads into how good our co's "vision" is.... from a stockholders standpoint.Looking at corporate America and our reluctance for sustainable manufacturing,again.... takes the air out of a discussion.Further exasperated by polarized subjects,animal "rights".... logging industry..... firearms.

On a personal note,let'm go tits up.... gonna be one heck of a firesale.

 

[Bret4207]

Sad, but that's the state of affairs in 2017 USA. I haven't bought a new gun of any make in many, many years outside of one gift rifle for one of my sons. I think the last was a Ruger MkIII 15 years or so back. Same thing with new cars/truck/tractors/etc. I don't know who's buying new big ticket items these days, but it sure isn't me. the corporate weenies that think they can offer something cosmetically/namewise new every year and keep selling a gazillion widgits seem to be wrong more often than not.

 

[popper]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/b...ame-the-gun-industrys-giant.html?pagewanted=3
The strategy that isn't working.
Oh, CMP is getting Mil 1911s.

 

[Brad]

We are partially to blame as gun owners. We tend to be very price sensitive and want a gun for the same price today that we paid 20 years ago.
Production cost must go down to keep prices down. Quality drops over time. After a while the guns aren't worth buying any longer.

Think of it this way, how many people want FA quality for a Ruger price? Not gonna happen.

This is classic equity capital purchasing. Buy a company, wring out profits while you can, then sell the empty shell or just discard it.

 

[Pistolero]

The Soros thing is not true. A nephew is a big bond trader in NYC area, knows the head of the Freedom Group
personally. Nephew is a shooter, and I have asked about this story on the web, he says no way, guy is a gun lover, no
way trying to cause problems. Of course, anyone can own stock, so no way of really knowing who
owns some stock of Rem, or Freedom Grp, but certainly not a Soros owned entity. Too many political BS stories
floating around on the net. Nephew is very seriously connected to the
financial markets in NYC, knows pretty much all the big dogs and handles over $10 billion in
assets in his company. Really smart kid (in 50s now!), started with nothing, at the bottom after some big personal
screwups and decided to succeed, and has.

Bill

 

[fiver]

I remember one time we had a big meeting when things were slowing down in the oil field.
the camp manager stood up in front of all the supervisors and pulls out a line about we need to keep the stock holders happy.
we have to cut down on this and cut down on that [all BS]

I got into trouble when he asked if we had any comments.
I told him I was a stock holder and I was pretty happy with the way things were going.
and that as a stock holder i felt that we needed to cut from the top down not from the bottom up.
it is the guy doing the work in front of the customer that puts the face on the company name, and a frowny face making excuses for lack of material or whatever is not the image of quality we want to be showing to the customer.

 

[Pistolero]

Grin. Bet that made you extra popular with the boss man, fiver.

truth to power......

 

[fiver]

the oil field is super cut throat.
you let on to a company man that your having any kind of trouble within the company and they will immediately push that up their ladder and start re-negotiating prices for other jobs.
[many times a Co. man will have a bonus based on bottom line per well in his contract]
when you do several hundred jobs throughout the year cutting 10-20G off each one really hurts the bottom line and makes things worse.
I'm not a CPA or a college graduate but I can do simple math pretty quick, and cutting a 10% margin down to 3% when your already having a cash flow issues isn't gonna make things better.
[the surest way to let that happen is to upset the guys that sit there with him for 8-12 hrs. a day]

 

[Bret4207]

I'm not entirely clear on how this works, but IIRC there is a law in place for corporations, at least some, that pretty much make the stock holders impotent, that leaves everything in the hands of the board of directors, including who is on the BoD. It may not apply to all sectors, but it seems it did apply to a lot of places where the company was failing and yet the BoD gave itself bonuses and the bog bosses big bonuses.

In the local vernacular, that's horse crap.

 

[oscarflytyer]

We are partially to blame as gun owners. We tend to be very price sensitive and want a gun for the same price today that we paid 20 years ago.
Production cost must go down to keep prices down. Quality drops over time. After a while the guns aren't worth buying any longer.

Think of it this way, how many people want FA quality for a Ruger price? Not gonna happen.

This is classic equity capital purchasing. Buy a company, wring out profits while you can, then sell the empty shell or just discard it.

Brad - not sure I agree. Cheaper build ain't necessarily better or what I want. I can't afford $3K for a NOS Savage 99. But dang, don't give me a REMLIN with a bbl/sight that is not indexed. It is entirely worthless...

 

[oscarflytyer]

the oil field is super cut throat.
you let on to a company man that your having any kind of trouble within the company and they will immediately push that up their ladder and start re-negotiating prices for other jobs.
[many times a Co. man will have a bonus based on bottom line per well in his contract]
when you do several hundred jobs throughout the year cutting 10-20G off each one really hurts the bottom line and makes things worse.
I'm not a CPA or a college graduate but I can do simple math pretty quick, and cutting a 10% margin down to 3% when your already having a cash flow issues isn't gonna make things better.
[the surest way to let that happen is to upset the guys that sit there with him for 8-12 hrs. a day]

lmao! sounds like the printer business!!!!

 

[RBHarter]

We have 3 kinds of businesses in the market .
We have folks like Al Nelson , RCBS , and I guess Redding . If there's a problem with the product you call or email or whatever and the correct person either walks you through a fix or sends you the stuff to make it right , in many cases even 2nd or 10th owners .
Then we have the MEC , Savage and Lee type companies . They build a reasonably priced product that probably works out of the box but it almost always needs some sort of fussing to get it running perfectly and there is a pool of after market parts and or the product is basically unchanged and they only have 4 sets of parts for 27 different products with a handful of special parts that are upgrades to the old machines .

Then you have a company like Remington that has a 200 yo name , that went on a buying spree in good times but can't get a product fixed right in 3-4 tries , has no or very little after or direct market support for the buyout production and lousy customer support and communication .

Me I'm going to keep buying from the first 2 .

 

[Bret4207]

Ive seen this same business "cycle", for lack of a better term, in lots of other areas. Ag equipment for instance. You had giant, profitable, innovative companies like Allis Chalmers that simply put the wrong people in charge and went nuts to the point they got bought out by other companies that had no interest in building the company back up. Then you companies like JI Case that had leaders that refused to accept reality and wouldn't innovate or spend money selling their products. And then you had companies like Ford that had everything going for it and a huge bankroll to boot that just lost interest in that sector of the corp or made enormous blunders by not listening to their engineers that told them something wouldn't work. There were also those that just floundered about blindly even though they had a decent enough product. It's survival of the fittest and capitalism at work. We don't have to like it, but there it is. There is still a market for quality items. The problem from where I sit, particularly in the firearms sector, is that there isn't really anything ground breakingly better that's been introduced in the last 20-30 years that isn't already covered by existing products. There are a gazillion, well proven, used guns out there that serve just as well as a brand new, not made as well gun. Is a 7 shot revolver really that much better than a 6 shot? Is a plastic stock and stainless barrel really that much better than walnut and blued steel? Is a 1911 with a pink frame, baby blue slide and imitation ivory grips really in demand? I know they're in the market to sell guns, but the market is limited IMO. The only real advance I can think of is injection molded pistol frames. Everything else seems to be cost cutting methods that are marketed as improvements. I'm sure others may have a differing opinion, but is there really anything another 30 cal mag can do that a 300H+H can't?

 

[Ian]

Everything else seems to be cost cutting methods that are marketed as improvements.

Good observation.

Savage floating bolt head, perfect example. It ain't for accuracy, its so they can get by with phenomenally sloppy machine work and still manage to have decent lug engagement. Same with barrel nut and headspace. Not that it isn't a good idea in general, but these things are simply innovations that cut production costs while still delivering an acceptable product. I doubt that a barrel nut and floating bolt head would make a properly-built 700 shoot any better. Sintered metal receivers, anyone?

 

[Brad]

I don't know numbers for certain but I am willing to bet most firearms are sold to people who don't know quality. How many handguns were sold to first time gun owners in the past 10 years? I bet those people are happy if it goes bang when the trigger is pulled.

WE may be willing to pay more for quality but Joe Gunbuyer doesn't know and does t care. Joe just wants cheap.

 

[KeithB]

Guns aren't much different than cars. Most people (naturally) want to pay as little as necessary to get what they need. Most people don't work on their own cars. They don't formulate their own fuel blends. And they don't change the parts around for better after-market parts.

What is quality? If an occasional shooter can buy a new plastic 9mm and it works reliably with the box of factory ammo they shoot through it every few years how much more quality do they need and how much more should they pay for it? If I buy a car that gets reasonable gas mileage, has good safety features, and is reliable how much more quality do I need, or should pay for?

I agree that many new ideas for cars and guns aren't good ideas, but that is the nature of trying to make improvements to meet certain goals. We often learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. Read gun related literature/news over a long period of time and you will find every new innovation has its supporters and detractors. The rifled barrel was praised for accuracy and blamed for slow loading. Repeating rifles were boosted by the real warriors and decried by the established military for "wasting ammo". The bolt gun was slammed by folks used to flat sided lever guns, until after WWI, when they became the standard action for sporting rifles. Same thing with the military going to self loading weapons and the 9mm and away from bolt guns and .45s. Change is not always good but it is always necessary, it is a cosmic rule that life is change.