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sosure
May 11, 2010, 6:08 AM
Post #26 of 94
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You read it wrong. This is not a story of Peter Metcalf accessing capital markets in order to further grow the BDEL business, its the story of Duff, Metcalf, and the original Choinard buyout group selling out and Warrren Kanders taking over. So who is Warren Kanders?
Warren Kanders is your quintessential cigar-chomping, boarding school/ivy groomed, trophy wife brandishing, fat, republican-douchebag capitalist-pig. His previous big score was a military contractor called Armour Holdings. With his business partner, Robert Schiller, Kanders built Armour through a series of acquisitions beginning in 1996 and sold it off in July 2007 to BAE, a much larger military contractor. This sale was right about the time that the DOJ and military began investigating a handful of armour providers for providing defective body armour to the military. Eventually Armour (by that time owned by BAE) paid some hefty fines for violations of the false claims act. Soldiers got shortchanged (maybe fatally?); Warren Kanders got rich.
Amongst Armour's many assets was Gregory, which BAE had no use for, so it sold it back to Kanders and Schiller. Now Kanders has always had more than one card in the game: in addition to controlling Armour, he controll(ed)(s) a few "blank check" companies. These are companies that are publicly listed but which have no operating assets and provide "shells" typically used to quickly bring a private company public. Clarus, 30% owned by Kanders prior to the transaction, is one such "blank check." Kanders/Clarus is buying BDEL for $90 million cash and buying Gregory for $22.5 million in Clarus stock at $6 and $22.5 million in Clarus debt. Supposedly the BDEL executives who are receiving employment agreements with Clarus are going to use some of their cash to buy stock at $6, but the only definitive mention of this in the SEC filing is that Metcalf is receiving options to buy 75,000 shares at $6.00 per share which will vest in three installments in 2012-14. Even assuming Metcalf purchases and retains all 75K shares, this is a trivial amount of stock compared to Kanders position of between 5.1 and 7 million shares immediately post acquisition (his percent interest in Gregory is unclear). Another way to think of the transaction is that Kanders is trading 100% of crappy little Gregory for a 30+% interest in and control over BDEL.
With 30+% of the company, Kanders will be, by far, the largest shareholder (possibly also the fattest) and he's staying on as Executive Chairman to protect his assets (and his business partner Schiller is staying on as Executive Vice-Chairman). Make no mistake, Metcalf works for Kanders and Kanders is in business to make money, lots of it, mostly by acquiring and flipping assets within 10 years (before the negligence or fraud suits get filed). His track record on safety?, his apparent interest in anyone's welfare other than his own?.... apparently not so great.
As for me: I think Kanders will make a lot of money in this deal; I think people who invest with Kanders will make some money, but a lot less than Kanders; but on the product side: no way in hell will you catch me buying safety equipment from a Wall Street robber baron.
====
Here's a nice little blurb about how Kanders used lobbying and political connections to maintain his status as the sole company permitted to armour Humvees (resulting in a shortage of armoured Humvees and a surplus of dead soldiers in Iraq in the mid-2000s)
http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/archives/2005/06/
and here:
http://www.nytimes.com/....html?pagewanted=all
Oh yeah and on the subject of whether BDEL was "employee owned", Duff and Metcalf each owned in excess of 10,000 shares of the company. The next ranking officer, Robert Peay, BDEL's CFO, (who was not part of the original Choinard Equipment buyout group) owned only 263. The other named principal stockholders were "Jaeggi, Ritchie, Grover, Carlson, McCall, Bowers, Bancroft, Cranor, (Michael) Metcalf, and Sachika" -- I believe they are mostly original investors, not ESOP employees.
(This post was edited by sosure on May 11, 2010, 6:14 AM)
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sbaclimber
May 11, 2010, 9:05 AM
Post #27 of 94
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guangzhou wrote: majid_sabet wrote: Great news for one more American company to operate in China so you dirtbaggers in Utah will be filling unemployment soon. BD has operated in China for quite some time. They actually had enough China based contractors they they went in a created a compound to steam line it's China operations and distribution. Visit BD Asia. I for one think it;s a plus. All along, they maintain a small part of it's operation In Salt Lake and Switzerland too. I for one will be investing when this goes public. Both companies have strong finances and a good name. I think this will also help BD with some more financing in the R&D department. I do agree, the BD and Gregory packs will be harvested into one brand, but both made good packs in their lines. I am guessing you'll get a strong line of packs using the best innovation of both companies. I for one think this is a great move. I'll be investing in the company to show my support.
Will current shares in Clarus automatically become shares in Black Diamond when then name change occurs in June or whenever?
In other words, could I "invest" in future Black Diamond by buying Clarus shares today?
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sosure
May 11, 2010, 12:43 PM
Post #28 of 94
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Yes, if you purchase shares of Clarus you will eventually own an equal number of shares of the proposed new Black Diamond company when the name change is effected. This assumes the merger transaction is consummated as the management and principal shareholders of both companies expect it to be by June 30. At that time or shortly thereafter, your Clarus shares would be renamed Black Diamond and listed on a national exchange. As a reminder though, at this point, investing at $6 represents a expression of absolute faith in the good intentions of Warren Kanders. He's selling Gregory to Clarus for half shares at $6 and half debt. The BDEL people aren't selling for a mixture of new stock and cash, or new stock and new debt, or any securities of the new company whatsoever, they are selling for hard cash only. In other words, as an investor group, the BDEL people are expressing no confidence whatsoever in the future of the combined entity. Were they to even sell part of their interests for shares, they could reduce their immediate tax burden and capitalize on the future growth of the company if its current price is "low" or if they believe Kanders has the ability to grow it successfully. They are doing no such thing.
Also, if you invest today you are doing so knowing only this: the combined revenues of the new entity (should the transaction be concluded) will be roughly $113mm, and its valuation at least $152. Until the merger documents with consolidated financials are publicly filed you have no idea how much debt either Black Diamond or Gregory hold. Black Diamond may be profitable, but they owe money to Zions Bancshares and to Credit Suisse. Their interest burden may be sopping up most of that profit. They may be selling now because they have to, not because they want to. You just won't know until the merger documents are filed.....
To me, this looks like corporate raider Ron Perelman buying camping products company Coleman in the 90s. That didn't go so well in the long run for Coleman Shareholders or Coleman's products. In addiition to looking a lot like a heavier-set version of Perelman, Kanders business used to include installing the armor plating on Humvee trucks, which were made by Ron Perelman's AM General; I wonder if they golf together.
Remember, the people who do this sort of thing (mergers and acquisitions) do it with enormous ferocity and for their own benefit, not the public's. Buyer beware.
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james_va
May 11, 2010, 12:44 PM
Post #29 of 94
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sbaclimber, because we don't really know anything about BD's financials yet (except their revenue figure and the fact that they are profitable enough that Clarus hopes to realize at least some of its $228m in loss carryforwards), I'd suggest waiting for more info on BD to come out after the deal closes. Just a suggestion, of course.
From what I know, these guys have not run Gregory into the ground (in fact, it's presumably good for Gregory to be bundled into BD's distribution network), so while they might not be climbers, I don't think that we can say that this deal is terrible per se yet. BD entered this willingly and its founder and CFO will own a meaningful % of the new company according to the conference call, and that's a good sign*. When VF Corp bought the struggling North Face in 2000, it apparently saved the company. Then again, VF has related experience (JanSport packs, Wrangler and Lee jeans, Nautica), while Clarus is literally a shell (it got booted off the NASDAQ for this reason), so it may ultimately mean lower-quality equipment (I hope not!)... But it sounds like they want to buy more outdoor companies to roll up into this entity as a long-term strategy, which might be beneficial for smaller outfits (and they're all small, mostly) that might not thrive on their own.
The established outdoor companies seem like big brands, but in the scope of global commerce they're tiny and often safer when bundled together. Jarden -- a company with a voracious appetite for buying smaller companies, such as Ball jars, Mr. Coffee, Crock-Pots, Conair blow dryers, Trilene fishing line, Sunbeam, and about a zillion more -- bought K2 skis (Tubbs snowshoes, etc.) in 2007 and to my knowledge, this has been a good thing (and has probably means less volatility for K2 shareholders).
I'm actually not saying that this is great, but that it all depends on how it's handled. Either way, as a public company, BD will provide folks with a lot more transparency, and consumers remain free to purchase from its competitors.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2005/04/01/8256016/index.htm
[*EDIT: After scoping out this thread, if sosoure above is accurate about Metcalf buying only 75k shares, and I'd presume he is, then I'd read that as a clear negative. I listened to the call during breakfast/washing dishes, and probably heard them say that the entire mgmt team would own 35%-ish of the 21.something million shares total, so with just a teeny % of that, the BD CEO has become a bit player, ownership-wise, in the future entity.]
(This post was edited by james_va on May 11, 2010, 1:33 PM)
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j_ung
May 11, 2010, 12:51 PM
Post #31 of 94
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Word on the street is that all the C4 colors are about to change.
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TarHeelEMT
May 11, 2010, 1:09 PM
Post #32 of 94
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j_ung wrote: Word on the street is that all the C4 colors are about to change.
Hahaha
Good thing there's still Metolius to trust.
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j_ung
May 11, 2010, 1:18 PM
Post #33 of 94
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TarHeelEMT wrote: j_ung wrote: Word on the street is that all the C4 colors are about to change. Hahaha Good thing there's still Metolius to trust.
I hear they're changing to match Wired Bliss! 
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kachoong
May 11, 2010, 1:18 PM
Post #34 of 94
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j_ung wrote: Word on the street is that all the C4 colors are about to change.
Heh! Perhaps all different shades of green.
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kachoong
May 11, 2010, 1:21 PM
Post #35 of 94
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kachoong wrote: j_ung wrote: Word on the street is that all the C4 colors are about to change. Heh! Perhaps all different shades of green.
They could also stamp a different president on each size. Washington on the 0.3, Franklin on the 0.4 etc...
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cracklover
May 11, 2010, 3:45 PM
Post #36 of 94
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marc801 wrote: devkrev wrote: marc801 wrote: climbist wrote: In reply to: Stamford, Connecticut is definitely a world-class climbing/skiing destination. So I'm sure Clarus knows all about BD's business. dev exactly what I was thinking... Clarus doesn't have to know a thing about BD's business, since they decided Pete Metcalf would continue as CEO of the combined entity. Metcalf's responsibility now is to make sure his P&L matches or exceeds what was agreed to with Clarus. Just like Backcountry.com's relationship with their owner, Liberty Media. And if the P&L doesn't match expectations? What kind of cost saving measures will Clarus expect(demand)? Probably about the same as the investors would expect when BD was privately held. That was your entire point - that somehow this will significantly change the way BD operates. In some ways, yes, but in the areas you were concerned about - product quality and innovation - pretty unlikely. If anything, it may seriously help in innovation and product R&D.
I don't know why you would think that. Rather, I would expect that cutting a few corners, slashing the budget for R&D, and putting more emphasis on selling high-profit generic soft goods would be the quickest way of making the company more profitable on paper, driving up the price of the stock, and making him a handsome profit when he sells.
GO
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marc801
May 11, 2010, 4:06 PM
Post #37 of 94
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cracklover wrote: marc801 wrote: devkrev wrote: marc801 wrote: climbist wrote: In reply to: Stamford, Connecticut is definitely a world-class climbing/skiing destination. So I'm sure Clarus knows all about BD's business. dev exactly what I was thinking... Clarus doesn't have to know a thing about BD's business, since they decided Pete Metcalf would continue as CEO of the combined entity. Metcalf's responsibility now is to make sure his P&L matches or exceeds what was agreed to with Clarus. Just like Backcountry.com's relationship with their owner, Liberty Media. And if the P&L doesn't match expectations? What kind of cost saving measures will Clarus expect(demand)? Probably about the same as the investors would expect when BD was privately held. That was your entire point - that somehow this will significantly change the way BD operates. In some ways, yes, but in the areas you were concerned about - product quality and innovation - pretty unlikely. If anything, it may seriously help in innovation and product R&D. I don't know why you would think that. Rather, I would expect that cutting a few corners, slashing the budget for R&D, and putting more emphasis on selling high-profit generic soft goods would be the quickest way of making the company more profitable on paper, driving up the price of the stock, and making him a handsome profit when he sells.
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kaizen
May 11, 2010, 4:42 PM
Post #38 of 94
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I disagree. CEO's answer to shareholders, who ever- increasingly demand short term, instant gains over long-term organic growth. Private gear manufacturers tend to be in it for love of gear and development, and providing a full time job doing something they love. As mentioned, TNF, Marmot, Mountain Hardware, etc, went public and still produced goods. Yet how many of the above companies are innovating and creating at the cutting edge, in a space with less overhead costs (apparel/clothing) than BD's would? None of them. They now focus on apparel only, that is cheaply produced, ensuring that profits are generated.
I find it highly unlikely, given the parties involved and many previous examples in this niche industry, that BD will invest more in gear innovation and design than they currently do.
The need to be positive is understandable, but I don't see how anyone not associated with this transaction could be pleased.
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cracklover
May 11, 2010, 5:28 PM
Post #39 of 94
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kaizen wrote: I disagree. CEO's answer to shareholders, who ever- increasingly demand short term, instant gains over long-term organic growth.
Besides which, unless I misunderstand things, the CEO no longer has an ownership share of the company. So while I've no doubt that he still wants to see his baby go in the right direction, ultimately he traded $90 million dollars for the right to make the big decisions.
The new owner may want one of three things - to get a big chunk of that $90M back as quickly as possible, and then sell for whatever profit he can; to make the company look as positive on paper as possible, and then sell it for lots of $$; or to consider that he may never get back his investment, and allow the already mature company to just keep doing business as usual.
I'm not naive enough to think the latter is even a faint possibility.
GO
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sosure
May 11, 2010, 6:23 PM
Post #40 of 94
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Kanders is a roll up artist, this is his gamebook:
You need stock you can use as currency. So the first acquisition is something 'gilded,' something you can get traction with in the stock market. You use your inflated stock to purchase a bunch of related businesses, always touting the 'synergies' you will capture from combining their respective distribution networks,' cross-selling' their products, and 'levering' products into new end-markets. Acquiring other companies for stock means that you progressively dilute your stake in the entity. Under no circumstances however, do you allow any one acquisition to result in someone else gaining a larger stake or take control of the rollup away from you. And although you have diluted your stock position, you will continually write yourself big fat paychecks (which you can do because you control the corporation) and issue yourself large option grants. After 7-8 years you make a run for it, you juice your operating companies as hard as you can in an up-market cycle to squeeze every last possible drop of revenue and income out of them and then you sell the company to a lumbering, no-growth or dying conglomerate run by a professional (non-entrepreneurial) manager who is envious of the rapid growth you have demonstrated over the previous 12 quarters. He is left holding bag.
Kanders doesn't care about BD, he cares about having a currency to make another dozen acquisitions over the next 5-7 years. He cares about the bonus check he is going to write himself after each acquisition, about the options he is going to grant himself, and about the sucker at the end of the timeline that will eat the turd he squeezes out. He doesn't want to make defective safety equipment, but its rolling and flipping, not quality, that he's good at and its the money that he cares about.
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coldfinger
May 12, 2010, 2:44 AM
Post #41 of 94
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Hey everybody, BD sold so let's go celebrate at the Panda Pavilion!
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sungam
May 13, 2010, 12:29 PM
Post #42 of 94
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DMM Dragons could not have come out at a better time...
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billcoe_
May 13, 2010, 1:55 PM
Post #43 of 94
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With sosures posts, I predict this will go 4 more pages easily:-) However, these guys already moved production to China, how can it get any cheaper? I wouldn't be SoSure that product will become bad or that Kander will become rich on this one. BTW, the Dragons only go to a #4 Black Diamond size.
sosure wrote: You read it wrong. This is not a story of Peter Metcalf accessing capital markets in order to further grow the BDEL business, its the story of Duff, Metcalf, and the original Choinard buyout group selling out and Warrren Kanders taking over. So who is Warren Kanders? Warren Kanders is your quintessential cigar-chomping, boarding school/ivy groomed, trophy wife brandishing, fat, republican-douchebag capitalist-pig. His previous big score was a military contractor called Armour Holdings. With his business partner, Robert Schiller, Kanders built Armour through a series of acquisitions beginning in 1996 and sold it off in July 2007 to BAE, a much larger military contractor. This sale was right about the time that the DOJ and military began investigating a handful of armour providers for providing defective body armour to the military. Eventually Armour (by that time owned by BAE) paid some hefty fines for violations of the false claims act. Soldiers got shortchanged (maybe fatally?); Warren Kanders got rich. Amongst Armour's many assets was Gregory, which BAE had no use for, so it sold it back to Kanders and Schiller. Now Kanders has always had more than one card in the game: in addition to controlling Armour, he controll(ed)(s) a few "blank check" companies. These are companies that are publicly listed but which have no operating assets and provide "shells" typically used to quickly bring a private company public. Clarus, 30% owned by Kanders prior to the transaction, is one such "blank check." Kanders/Clarus is buying BDEL for $90 million cash and buying Gregory for $22.5 million in Clarus stock at $6 and $22.5 million in Clarus debt. Supposedly the BDEL executives who are receiving employment agreements with Clarus are going to use some of their cash to buy stock at $6, but the only definitive mention of this in the SEC filing is that Metcalf is receiving options to buy 75,000 shares at $6.00 per share which will vest in three installments in 2012-14. Even assuming Metcalf purchases and retains all 75K shares, this is a trivial amount of stock compared to Kanders position of between 5.1 and 7 million shares immediately post acquisition (his percent interest in Gregory is unclear). Another way to think of the transaction is that Kanders is trading 100% of crappy little Gregory for a 30+% interest in and control over BDEL. With 30+% of the company, Kanders will be, by far, the largest shareholder (possibly also the fattest) and he's staying on as Executive Chairman to protect his assets (and his business partner Schiller is staying on as Executive Vice-Chairman). Make no mistake, Metcalf works for Kanders and Kanders is in business to make money, lots of it, mostly by acquiring and flipping assets within 10 years (before the negligence or fraud suits get filed). His track record on safety?, his apparent interest in anyone's welfare other than his own?.... apparently not so great. As for me: I think Kanders will make a lot of money in this deal; I think people who invest with Kanders will make some money, but a lot less than Kanders; but on the product side: no way in hell will you catch me buying safety equipment from a Wall Street robber baron. ==== Here's a nice little blurb about how Kanders used lobbying and political connections to maintain his status as the sole company permitted to armour Humvees (resulting in a shortage of armoured Humvees and a surplus of dead soldiers in Iraq in the mid-2000s) http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/archives/2005/06/ and here: http://www.nytimes.com/....html?pagewanted=all Oh yeah and on the subject of whether BDEL was "employee owned", Duff and Metcalf each owned in excess of 10,000 shares of the company. The next ranking officer, Robert Peay, BDEL's CFO, (who was not part of the original Choinard Equipment buyout group) owned only 263. The other named principal stockholders were "Jaeggi, Ritchie, Grover, Carlson, McCall, Bowers, Bancroft, Cranor, (Michael) Metcalf, and Sachika" -- I believe they are mostly original investors, not ESOP employees. |
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sungam
May 13, 2010, 2:54 PM
Post #44 of 94
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billcoe_ wrote: the Dragons only go to a #4 Black Diamond size.
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caughtinside
May 13, 2010, 3:13 PM
Post #46 of 94
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agdavis wrote: fitzontherocks wrote: Isn't Black Diamond employee-owned? Wonder how employees feel about this. If Black Diamond were truly employee-owned, then they were obviously fine with it. Companies that say they are employee-owned because they give them a tiny bit of stock options don't give employees say, and I highly doubt that the employees actually think they own a significant piece of the company.
It's a way for metcalf and the top guys to cash out and still retain their jobs for a couple years while new guys transition in, then the old guys can retire on their mountian of cash. The rank and file guys... well no one gives a hoot about them. Lots of them got laid off in the last 3 years anyway.
As far as I can tell, it's just a cash out and exit for the top guys. Look who bought them... its a shell company. They don't do anything, they just have lots of money and buy companies. And they're touting that body armor thing they built... which was rife with defective products, going to soldiers in Iraq. Sweet.
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shrug7
May 13, 2010, 3:15 PM
Post #47 of 94
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Maybe REI will take my #6 C4 back so I can get a #6 WCFriend.    
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caughtinside
May 13, 2010, 3:17 PM
Post #48 of 94
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sosure wrote: You read it wrong. This is not a story of Peter Metcalf accessing capital markets in order to further grow the BDEL business, its the story of Duff, Metcalf, and the original Choinard buyout group selling out and Warrren Kanders taking over. So who is Warren Kanders? Warren Kanders is your quintessential cigar-chomping, boarding school/ivy groomed, trophy wife brandishing, fat, republican-douchebag capitalist-pig. His previous big score was a military contractor called Armour Holdings. With his business partner, Robert Schiller, Kanders built Armour through a series of acquisitions beginning in 1996 and sold it off in July 2007 to BAE, a much larger military contractor. This sale was right about the time that the DOJ and military began investigating a handful of armour providers for providing defective body armour to the military. Eventually Armour (by that time owned by BAE) paid some hefty fines for violations of the false claims act. Soldiers got shortchanged (maybe fatally?); Warren Kanders got rich. Amongst Armour's many assets was Gregory, which BAE had no use for, so it sold it back to Kanders and Schiller. Now Kanders has always had more than one card in the game: in addition to controlling Armour, he controll(ed)(s) a few "blank check" companies. These are companies that are publicly listed but which have no operating assets and provide "shells" typically used to quickly bring a private company public. Clarus, 30% owned by Kanders prior to the transaction, is one such "blank check." Kanders/Clarus is buying BDEL for $90 million cash and buying Gregory for $22.5 million in Clarus stock at $6 and $22.5 million in Clarus debt. Supposedly the BDEL executives who are receiving employment agreements with Clarus are going to use some of their cash to buy stock at $6, but the only definitive mention of this in the SEC filing is that Metcalf is receiving options to buy 75,000 shares at $6.00 per share which will vest in three installments in 2012-14. Even assuming Metcalf purchases and retains all 75K shares, this is a trivial amount of stock compared to Kanders position of between 5.1 and 7 million shares immediately post acquisition (his percent interest in Gregory is unclear). Another way to think of the transaction is that Kanders is trading 100% of crappy little Gregory for a 30+% interest in and control over BDEL. With 30+% of the company, Kanders will be, by far, the largest shareholder (possibly also the fattest) and he's staying on as Executive Chairman to protect his assets (and his business partner Schiller is staying on as Executive Vice-Chairman). Make no mistake, Metcalf works for Kanders and Kanders is in business to make money, lots of it, mostly by acquiring and flipping assets within 10 years (before the negligence or fraud suits get filed). His track record on safety?, his apparent interest in anyone's welfare other than his own?.... apparently not so great. As for me: I think Kanders will make a lot of money in this deal; I think people who invest with Kanders will make some money, but a lot less than Kanders; but on the product side: no way in hell will you catch me buying safety equipment from a Wall Street robber baron. ==== Here's a nice little blurb about how Kanders used lobbying and political connections to maintain his status as the sole company permitted to armour Humvees (resulting in a shortage of armoured Humvees and a surplus of dead soldiers in Iraq in the mid-2000s) http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/archives/2005/06/ and here: http://www.nytimes.com/....html?pagewanted=all Oh yeah and on the subject of whether BDEL was "employee owned", Duff and Metcalf each owned in excess of 10,000 shares of the company. The next ranking officer, Robert Peay, BDEL's CFO, (who was not part of the original Choinard Equipment buyout group) owned only 263. The other named principal stockholders were "Jaeggi, Ritchie, Grover, Carlson, McCall, Bowers, Bancroft, Cranor, (Michael) Metcalf, and Sachika" -- I believe they are mostly original investors, not ESOP employees.
should have read that first. good post.
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sungam
May 13, 2010, 3:20 PM
Post #49 of 94
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Angry is the man to ask about the comparison.
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