What will become of Winchester, Browning, Remington & Marlin

[gmhamilton3]

Is anyone concerned about the recent acquisitions of Bushmaster, Pather Arms, Remington Arms and Marlin Firearms by the private equity investment company Cerberus Capital Management. Does everyone know that Winchester and Browning are now owned by Fabrique Nationale de Herstal of Belgium. Will a corporate philosophy of profits first, out source the manufacturing of these widgits to China or India. Glad I bought my Rem 700BDL SS in 2003.

 

[Eric F]

Who cares I cant wait to get my Chrysler AR15 next year.......

Actually I do not expect to see too many of these lines to go over seas. Some will for sure like the base lines and cheaper stuff but not all.

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

Is anyone concerned about the recent acquisitions of Bushmaster, Pather Arms, Remington Arms and Marlin Firearms by the private equity investment company Cerberus Capital Management

You mean other than the people who posted in the other dozen threads about this?

Does everyone know that Winchester and Browning are now owned by Fabrique Nationale de Herstal of Belgium.

Yes.

 

[Omaha-BeenGlockin]

Just seems consolidation going on.

S&W buying out T/C and Beretta gobbling up just about everthing else.

Probably will make for stronger companies---but I can see customer service suffering.

 

[jad0110]

Cerberus Capital Management is the same group who purchased Chrysler from the now defunct Daimler-Chrysler Corporation. There is some worry over that in the various automotive publications (Car and Driver, Motor Trend, etc) as Cerberus apparently has a reputation for buying troubled companies and selling off the bits and pieces for more $$$ than they paid up front.

Lets just hope those are unfounded worries.

 

[MAKster]

FN Herstal has owned Browning since 1977. FN bought Winchester/USRAC in 1989. Browning and Winchester do not manufacture any firearms. They are just brand names put on firearms manufactured by other FN subsidiaries.

 

[PA1749]

Ruger

One more reason to go with RUGER !!!

 

[ilbob]

many browning brand labeled firearms were made in japan.

 

[huntsman]

History is littered with defunct U.S. gun companies. If there's a market for a product it will be made by somebody

 

[jerkface11]

You don't have to worry about DPMS or Bushmaster being outsourced. Evil "Assault" rifles can't be imported so they have to be made here.

 

[Steve N]

In typical short-sighted American business fashion, the new owners will ship the manufacturing and technology overseas for lower-pay labor. More high-pay US manufacturing jobs will disappear. American's will no longer be able to afford to buy those brands. Our foreign debt will continue to grow.

Pretty soon we will have outsourced all of our manufacturing, and we won't have the technology, capacity, or skilled labor to build the weapons to defend ourselves. Our enemies will simply walk right in and take over, and we won't be able to do a thing about it.

The typical American business model may be great for a few investors who have time to follow their stocks all day, and jump when the time is right, but for the rest of us, its not so great. In China, the govt will subsidize a business sector to get it started. In America, a company's stock drops 5 points if the CEO sneezes.

We are on a viscious downslope with our business models here in the US, and I don't see where its going to stop.

Communism is a bad idea, but a 5-year plan isn't.

 

[atblis]

Yeah

One more reason to go with RUGER !!!

Yeah, if they manage to crap them up enough, Ruger might look like a good alternative.

 

[SG Merc]

Do I think it's a good thing for the future of firearms availability that nearly all firearms will be manufactured by only two companies?

Absolutely not.

 

[Robert Hairless]

Aren't such developments inherent in a free market system?

 

[Winchester 73]

Aren't such developments inherent in a free market system?

Certainly correct.The market will make the necessary adjustments.Nothing to worry about,IMO.

 

[nplant]

Look on the bright side - what with the dollar doing worse against other foreign currency, pretty soon, everyone will be switching their loss-leader products to US manufacture. Heheheh.

 

[Technosavant]

I would probably expect that eventually, once the companies become stronger, Cerberus would spin them off, likely as one larger corporation with all the brand names under one roof. Spinning off a healthy company through sale of stock would generate a fair amount of profit (stripping and flipping may be worthwhile for shortsighted investors or companies that can't be made healthy, but if they can, better to rehab it).

If absolutely nothing else, the brand names themselves are worthwhile, and can be licensed, much like Olin licensed the Winchester name to USRAC.

 

[Charles Daly]

Steve N: what jerkface posted just before you is correct. The firearms from DPMS and Bushmaster cannot be imported into the US. They must be made here.

 

[ozarkhillbilly]

Lets see there are still

S&W
Beretta
Kimber
Glock
Springfield
CZ
H&K
FN
Cerberus Capital Management
Walther
Sig
Colt
Taurus
Armalite
Khar
Les Baer
Kel-tec
Para-Ordanance
Rock River
Ruger
Wilson
IMI
Tanfoglio
Stag
And all others I have forgotten


I do not know but that seems a far cry from just a couple. Lets face it Winchester and Remington were bought because they could not turn a profit and had massive debt. Marlin, DPMS, Bushmaster and Thompson/Center as well as a few other small players were bought because they could turn a profit but they needed cash to go to the next stage more then they could make, so their owners sold them nothing wrong with that.

By the way most companies do not out source because of lower paid workers, they out source because imbedded taxes count for around 30% of the cost of anything made in the USA. Cut out that 30% and factor in the fact that Americans are the hardest and most productive workers in the world and companies from all over the world would be opening factories here.

 

[RedLion]

Cerberus is only concerned with making money. They do this by taking out a loan for a very large portion of the cost of buying a company. Rearrange and streamline the management to make the company more profitable then turn around and sell it for an amount a little larger than what it cost in the beginning, but since most of the money is from loans they really doubled their investment.

I don't see a problem with it because Cerberus knows if they make garbage people won't buy it and they will lose a huge amount of money (read loan default) and they'll be in real trouble.

 

[Zundfolge]

Will a corporate philosophy of profits first, out source the manufacturing of these widgits to China or India.

Better that than a corporate philosophy that DOESN'T put profits first which ends with a boarded up building and unemployed gunsmiths.


Most folk on this site are on the "right page" on liberty when it comes to RKBA ... I wish we could get more of y'all on the right page when it comes to economics and the free market (which is the essence of liberty).

All too often those that complain about outsourcing and MIM parts are also the first to bitch and moan about the prices of quality, 100% Steel, 100% American made guns too.

 

[CajunBass]

If those companies were in such bad shape that it's cheaper to outsource them, or to shut them down it would have happened anyway.

What's the difference?

 

[jaysouth]

Few American jobs are lost because of wages. Most of the jobs that go overseas leave highly regulated, highly taxed states like California, New York and MA.

Overly complex regulations, the burdensome cost of compliance and intrangent unions are the reason that most leave for sunnier shores where business in wanted and appreciated as a source of jobs and not a golden goose to be robbed by shortsighted unions and politicians.

 

[dodge]

It's not all just the unions that are making the jobs to go over seas. The CEO's that demand mutli millon bonuses every year has a lot to do with it. At my place of work we went on strike this past fall trying to get some sort of health insurance that wouldn't cost the worker an arm and a leg. This past spring the ceo took a 25+ millon bonus. I say that he should have been happy with a 1 millon bonus and put the rest back in the company. We are a machine/assembly shop that make compressors and stuff for the oil companys and the military. We have machines that were made back in the 1920's and unable to get parts for them we have to make them in house. I for one am tired of everything being blamed on the unions.

 

[cornman]

Ex Fed chairman Snow and old Dan Quale are on the borard of Cerberus Capital Management. Cerberus is where you get a job after you are done doing all the GOP boot licking. Watch for down sizing of those companies to shore up the balance sheets and then a sale to an overseas company. The criminals will pocket the difference and call it good for America.