An attempt to save Winchester

[gd357]

A former stockbroker has quit his job at Merrill Lynch to attempt to bring back the company, according to the thursday Wall Street Journal. Let's hope the endeavor is a success.

gd

[Dan Morris]

If he will bring back the old quality, I hope he makes it! It's sad to see an Icon go down.
Dan

[Rocky Raab]

The problems, as laid out in WSJ are:

The "Winchester" name and logo are owned by Olin Corp, leased to Herstal. The contract runs out next year.

The plant was highly modernized several years ago, with help from the city. Under that agreement (and union contracts) Winchesters cannot be made anywhere but in that city.

After doing the modernization, it has been determined that it would be cost prohibitive to make rifles there. They'd never sell at a price that would pay beck the cost of the factory upgrade.

On the other side of the ledger, if Herstal does cease making Winchesters, they'd owe the city almost a million dollars to repay the tax incentives given for the modernization.

If they can resurrect the name and manufacture, they'd probably make rifles that are being "replica-ed" by Italian and Brazilian firms: Mod 73s, Mod 92s, and such. They'd likely drop production of low-end guns like Wal-Mart specials. Any new Winchesters would be pricey.

[buckhunter]

I would ALMOST bet that Winchester will be back in time. I may be possible that Union considerations may play into it or possibly manufacturing other brands like the Weatherby did with the Japanese outfit. Who knows. The whole thing sounded funny from the beginning. I just don't see them going away.

Loosing Winchester is like loosing Chevrolet.

[Aim to maim]

Originally posted by buckhunter


Loosing Winchester is like loosing Chevrolet.

The way things have been going with General Motors lately, that's not beyond the realm of possibility.

[Str8shooter]

me thinks..............I'm a dumb blond

[TreeDoc]

Originally posted by Aim to maim
The way things have been going with General Motors lately, that's not beyond the realm of possibility.

Agreed, GM is on a thin rope.

I'm certain the Unions would rather see Winchester die on the vine. It's what Unions do.

[fabsroman]

GM and Ford will not be going anywhere any time soon. They might declare Chapter 13 bankruptcy and seek a reorganization, but that would put them in a pretty strong place. They could then get new union contracts and thereby deal with the pension and health insurance issues that they have. A lot of corporate issues in the US deal with funding pensions and paying for health insurance. Remington had an issue last year with possibly not being able to fund the required amount in its employee pension plan. There was talking of bankruptcy there too.

Now, look at Kmart. It declared Chapter 13 and once everything was finished it had enough cash to buy Sears Roebuck. Utterly insane.