This shortage vs the last one...perspective from Winchester

[gspn]

Bloomberg news had a short but good article today on Olin Corp and their sub Winchester.

The gist of the article was that they are making a lot of money on ammo sales...but there were some very interesting "supporting facts".

1 - Revenue from retail sector has outstripped LE and Military sales

2 - Pre-tax earnings at Winchester jumped to $16.5 million in 4Q 12...up from a mere $500,000 in 4Q 11.

3 - "consumer purchases of ammunition began to trend upward on the Saturday before election day...the trend has continued with sales only being limited by product availability"

4 - "the current surge is stronger and has expanded across the product line more quickly than the late 2008/early 2009 surge.

5 - The units commercial business (which supplies retailers) had an ammunition backlog valued at $280 million in january compared wtih $29 million at the end of 2011

6 - Olin has no plans to sell Winchester at this time

 

[slamfirev10]

Olin has no plans to sell Winchester at this time

 

[sota]

all I can say is, let's hope all areas of firearms sales and manufacturing that are making gobs of cash right now, remember where it came from and if need be use some of it to pressure those in power not to (mess) with the system. you can't stand there and say "the people want fewer guns!" when the sales figures blatantly show the exact opposite. well I guess you can if you're Feinstein.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Can you post a link to the article? My search-fu seems to be failing on this one.

 

[gspn]

If you have a Bloomberg terminal I can message the story to you. Or you can hit OLN US <equity> CN <go> to pull up news on Olin.

It will probably hit their regular internet website later.

 

[gspn]

Here ya go...I searched using the headline and it looks like a CA paper is publishing the story as it was reported on Bloomberg:

http://sfgate.bloomberg.com/SFChronicle/Story?docId=1376-MHEDBJ6S972F01-5CS0MQ6U0DF1GA57ASP9H2S69Q

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...bullet-sales-surged-days-before-election.html

 

[taliv]

i had no idea they were such a small outfit. $500k in profit for a quarter?? holy moly! even $16M for a quarter is tiny, even (especially) for a commodity business.

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

Pre-tax earnings at Winchester jumped to $16.5 million in 4Q 12...up from a mere $500,000 in 4Q 11.

This is slightly misleading. Winchester took a bunch of relocation charges in 4Q11.

It looks less dramatic if you compare the entire year of 2011 vs 2012. (37.9MM vs 55.2MM)

 

[gspn]

This is slightly misleading. Winchester took a bunch of relocation charges in 4Q11.

It looks less dramatic if you compare the entire year of 2011 vs 2012. (37.9MM vs 55.2MM)

Points to Jorg...we routinely rant about the lack of quality "reporting" from Bloomberg on all topics.

 

[Gordon_Freeman]

I hope they make donations to the NRA.

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

Winchester's annual sales:
1998 $266
1999 $286
2000 $277
2001 $269
2002 $283
2003 $303
2004 $318.5
2005 $344.8
2006 $373.6
2007 $431.7
2008 $489.1
2009 $567.7
2010 $549.3
2011 $572.0
2012 $617.6


Winchester's income
1998 $13
1999 $21
2000 $20
2001 $7
2002 $16
2003 $22
2004 $21.9
2005 $7.8
2006 $15.8
2007 $26.4
2008 $32.6
2009 $68.6
2010 $63.0
2011 $37.9
2012 $55.2

While some uptick doesn't come a surprise, it doesn't seem their sales are off the chart based on historic trends.

 

[MAKster]

The article is about Olin which makes Winchester brand ammo. Winchester firearms is a different entity and is owned by FN Herstal. Olin hasn't owned Winchester firearms since 1981.

 

[gearhead]

My understanding is that Olin Corp. licenses the Winchester name to FN for long guns while retaining the name for ammo.

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. The numbers posted were for the Winchester division of Olin.