Cerberus

[tombogan03884]

Anyone know anything about these guys. They must have money, Hope its not a Bloomberg front or G Soros.Think thier purchases will effect competition in the gun market. Compition is what drives development, that and the Military's needs.
  No ideas myself but curious what you all think.

[Michael Bane]

That's probably the biggest question in gun world right now...Cerberus now owns a huge chunk of the firearms manufacturing capacity of the United States...you tell me if you think this is a Good Thing...

If Cerberus picks off a big handgun company — and rumors are all over the place...S&W is reeling from a beating by Wall Street; Glock is under pressure in antigun Europe; even Taurus could be viewed as potentially in play — it totally dwarfs anyone else in the business.

Frankly, I'm puzzled more and more.

Michael B

[tombogan03884]

Michael, I was listening to your podcast when I wrote that . My thought was maybe someone here on the forum might pick something up from some other direction. They own Chrysler and some banks to I think you said. Maybe an employee of one of thier companies heard something and posts here. We seem to be from all walks of life and all over the country. I know we will all be keeping our ears open, I've still got a couple friends in the CNC Department at Thompson /Center. I'll be iterrogating them about new owner rumours. (my spelling stinks

[tombogan03884]

I checked WIKIPEDIA, founder 47 year old Steve Feinberg, Princeton , Capt of tennis team, ROTC, Few friends"Very Private person, Started with Drexel Burnham Republican, Hunter, Chairman is John W. Snow George W.'s second treasury secretary, Former VP Dan Quayle runs one of its international investment units. Feinberg has said he regrets the name but it seemed like a good Idea at the time (that statement is usually the kiss of death for my bright ideas) seems to own half the free world , MCI, 51% of GMAC, Parent co. of air Canada, Long list, half a billion here half a billion there, The firearms investments are coming from his couch cushions.Lives on Manhattens Upper east side , drives a pickup truck ,never gives interviews, Just a regular guy with a wife a 3 daughters who deals in hundreds of millions of dollars. Donald Rumsfeld is a client, Check out the company websight at cerberuscapital.com. This guy could Bixxh slap Bloomberg. No word on goals or objectives beyond making money though. The facts he lives like a regular wage slave and is a hunter are promising though, maybe he just wants to shoot some AR's

[tombogan03884]

More info, No word about S&W being bought but Thompson Center Arms are supplying the barrels for the M&P Rifle

[Sponsor]

[WaltGraham]

FWIW, I'm acquainted with a Mopar engineer from my years at Camp Jeep. I got a chance to ask him about the Cerberus acquisition of Chrysler at camp this year. His take was pretty positive on the company. It seems that Daimler promised a lot of things they didn't deliver, specifically money and engineering expertise. Never happened, too much bad juju between arrogant Germans and the folks that had whupped them. The Jeep name itself did not engender a great deal of warm feeling among the Daimler contingent. It was left to wither on the vine. On the other hand, he's pretty upbeat about Cerberus, they appear to actually want to rejuvenate the brand and they're giving it a substantial cash infusion. Don't know precisely how this relates to the present discussion, but I thought I'd toss it into the mix.

[tombogan03884]

I work for a " Corperation" sounds like a good thing for the peopleon the shop floor.

[hodman]

I have been following with great interest the Cerberus acquisitions although I don't have any inside information as to the intent of these acquisitions.  I can tell you that I believe the motive is simple make money. I worked at Black & Decker, which is where the current head of Smith & Wesson came from.  His market driven innovations are typical for Black & Decker.  You find out what the customer wants and give it to him, while making a profit for the shareholders.  Smith & Wesson has used this model to begin to establish market share, in areas that it was not previously known for, such as shotguns and rifles and polymer handguns.  I predict that you will see much of the same tactics employed in these recent acquisitions.  They will want to establish market share dominance in categories that they compete in and leverage this to be the customer’s first choice.  One interesting thing to me is that they have not acquired a handgun company.  At one point, I heard some rumors that they were trying to acquire Springfield Armory. I believe that based on the pattern of acquisitions, they are clearly interested in consumer and law enforcement / military sales.  The reason I speculate on this is with the purchase of Remington it has both high consumer brand recognition and a high presence in the law enforcement market.  If this company was interested only in military sales it would have seemed natural to only purchase Bushmaster. I don't know what their politics are, but I do know what their business model is but I don't think you'll see them doing things to hurt their business and their business is clearly selling guns.

My opinion is that it's better to have an American well-run company in the firearms business instead of one more European company in the American market. Although Smith & Wesson's stock price has taken a beating.  They are clearly a company that is responding to the consumer.  The old management at Smith & Wesson would have tucked tail and ran rather than coming out with innovations.  I'm hoping that Cerberus will bring innovation and consumer focus to the market as well.

[someguy]

Might or might not have anything to do with Cerberus (probably doesn't, now that I think about it) but LWRC,
makers of fine piston AR's (think HK416, but without the flaws and made in US) is about to be merging with
a 400million$ company in order to keep up with demand.  Seems that more than a few agencies have placed
several LARGE orders for 6.8spc SRT rifles.

I said I wouldn't name names, so that's all I can say for now, but should be interesting to see how everything
pans out...