whats this mean? GC and secured blahblahblah

I get it the way you explain it, thanks.
Its interesting as hell to me but I dont understand at a 1st grader level....I do get the concept of scam and dumping debt on people etc. Im a fan of American Greed, Bernie Maddoff movie and The Big Short...

When Baine took over I actually recall some poster saying "uh oh thats the end of GC".

So they bought GC but stuffed them with debt , so it reads, but how does a corporation like Baine add a billion of debt to GC?

The other ideas these companies come up with to me seem lame. GC wants to build more and more stores as a path to get out of debt? then Fender is going to bombard Guitar Lesson pop-up advertisement to save the company?
Just doesnt seem like the big plan will work. The only plan I would do is a hardcore downsize and go back to basics and less overhead, if they even can.

I mean Gibson could go back to what they are on a small scale and become in demand again and low output and stop trying to be a Microsoft corp. Fender ...geeez....theyve diversified so much and theres so much Fender stuff out on the floor and craigslist and every other used website, saturation seems to have arrived.

Thats my perception. When I see some guitar for $1900 or $4000 so someone can pretend to be a Rock Star it gets silly.

Or do they hope the collector baby-boomers will keep buying until they each have 1005 guitars in their basement and none of them are hardly played?

Its like going back to the basic recipe of what started it all, the core business. Even then the 60's and 70's crowds might be done buying guitars and amps?
The other will dwindle.

Fender is going for the teen crowd with Guitar Lessons to "seed a new crop" of customers but still the prices keep the high end out and the Squeirs quality continues to improve but theres not so much profit, and even new Squiers compete with an ocean of used Squiers.

So basically your saying they have a huge bill coming due, they are looking for some people to pay the bill for them while the business model doesnt change? Who would invest in that deal?
It doesnt make sense why anyone would invest in something thats not working very good.

Im just a financial idiot that likes to watch trainwrecks maybe?
 
Bain was the lead investor in setting up the Toys “R” Us debt in 2005.

March 23,2018-
Liquidation sales for Toys R Us kicked off on Friday, a spokeswoman told CNBC.

:eatpopcorn:


WIKIPEDIA> anti-Bain? Scam? Bain brings Financial Cancer?
In his 2009 book The Buyout of America: How Private Equity Is Destroying Jobs and Killing the American Economy, Josh Kosman described Bain Capital as "notorious for its failure to plow profits back into its businesses," being the first large private-equity firm to derive a large fraction of its revenues from corporate dividends and other distributions. The revenue potential of this strategy, which may "starve" a company of capital,[153] was increased by a 1970s court ruling that allowed companies to consider the entire fair-market value of the company, instead of only their "hard assets", in determining how much money was available to pay dividends.[154] In at least some instances, companies acquired by Bain borrowed money in order to increase their dividend payments, ultimately leading to the collapse of what had been financially stable businesses
 
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So basically your saying they have a huge bill coming due, they are looking for some people to pay the bill for them while the business model doesnt change? Who would invest in that deal?
It doesnt make sense why anyone would invest in something thats not working very good.

Im just a financial idiot that likes to watch trainwrecks maybe?

lol I also like the train-wrecks. If you don't already subscribe, look up Company Guy on youtube. Good channel on what works and more of what doesn't in the business world. Gibson and Toys R Us are both covered in decent depth.

Business and finance have become a boys club, corrupt lot. Even those companies we see as successful and ethical do things we would have a hard time pushing aside to get a good night's sleep. I really have to question anyone who chooses to work in the financial sector, knowing what I now know about it. It's basically a system to be cheated, and the best cheaters get rewarded.
 
No clue how GC is still in business.

GC ran around from state to state buying out all the smaller/individual brick-n-mortar music stores...stores that had been there for 30-40-50 years or more, and managed to do well enough and have steady customers.
I've been to a couple of GC stores, maybe as many times in the last 20 years.
Around here, we still have some individual music stores...I went in there for the first time in about 2 years, just to buy a few new picks to try, since I was looking for something different to switch to. Some smaller ma-n-pa stores in this are have closed.
The internet makes it too easy NOT to have to go to an actual store.

I love this quote from one of the articles:

“Most of what’s really selling today is rap and hip hop,” said George Gruhn, owner of the Gruhn Guitars shop in Nashville.
“That’s outpacing other forms of music and they don’t use a lot of recognizable musical instruments.”


:laughings:

And that the truth and the problem AFA new music store customers looking for guitars or what have you.
There's way to many people these days who make music but who can't play an instrument, and who don't really know much about actual songwriting or recording, etc.
It's mostly about capturing sounds, tweaking it, and making music out of that...and most " beats" are again, just sounds that someone else created.

While it is obvious that Hip Hop, Rap and R&B are at the forefront of current music sales...I don't get why so many are so focused mostly on those styles of music....to the point where it's infiltrated Rock, Pop and Country and completely changing those genres when you listen to the top hits getting the most play.

Yeah, the other styles are still there...but it's really the image of Hip Hop/Rap and also R&B that is driving this...not necessarily the jaw dropping music quality or "freshness" (the shit's been around for a pretty long time now, with little new ground being broken).
All the kids want to liove the "yo, wasss happenin' bro" kind of rude-boy gang-ish vibe thing...and the music is just part of that.

Anyway...I think Rock has actually been making a comeback...and I mean the more so-called "classic" rock...especially if you look at the Indie/Alt musicians...but there's not too many "guitar heroes" to be found there. Not yet, anyway. :D
 
Most of the 'guitar hero' caliber players are probably in jazz and progressive rock/metal.

In rock music, I've recently seen an even stronger emphasis on songwriting that already existed, versus raw playing virtuosity. You have to go back to the 1980s to find the last vestige of mainstream rock acts with exceptional guitar players (Van Halen, GnR, Prince, AC/DC, Vai/Satriani/Beck, some of the many hair bands, etc). Today the biggest rock acts, like the Foo Fighters, have three guitarists and the one who plays leads is hardly what I would rate world class. It's more about layering the sounds than it is about rapid fired notes. If they're not pushing (and punishing) their guitar to the very edge of its abilities, they don't need a very expensive instrument or many of them to satisfy those basic chord playing needs.

Live music in my area is started fading over a decade ago. Many of the smaller venues closed, with nothing replacing them. I haven't personally been to any local shows in probably 2 years, and that was for a touring act. Probably a handful of shows in 10 years. Mostly bars now, and we know how well they pay. Hard to blame anyone getting into music to look elsewhere for a genre they can make a living.

On the plus side - metal seems to be holding steady. I even find myself listening to some metal now, probably more than when I was half my age. But even in those bands, 'lead' guitar playing isn't much of a thing with some of them. Lead guitar parts feel forced/obligatory by today's metal standards. Leads seem reserved to the progressive metal acts.

I wouldn't conclude the guitar is dying, but the industry is rapidly contracting. The peak guitar era players are getting old and arthritic. :p They're dumping their guitars, not buying more of them.
 
How and why they suck the money out of your company.

Private Equity Firms

“It’s as if you buy your neighbor’s house. You put down the down payment. You own the house. But your neighbor has to pay off the mortgage. And if the neighbor can’t pay the mortgage, they go bankrupt, not you. That’s a sweet deal.”

Now that IS a sweet deal...as long as you're the one who owns the house that someone else is paying off. :D

So back to the guitar/music thing...

In the current Tape Op issue, in the "Letters" section at the front...a music teacher writes how few kids today want to learn to play any instrument, or put in the thousands of hours needed to lean how to really record in order to make great music.
He goes on to also say that it's mostly rich kids and "outliers/oddballs" who will end up taking music lessons and pursuing that on any serious level these days...
...while everyone else reaches for the loops and "construction kits" in order to "make music, and for them the general expectation is that music production will be a one-button affair.

I have to agree with the guy.
 
I think all of our assessments are likely contributing factors, which only makes the outlook for GC that much more gloomy.
 
How and why they suck the money out of your company.

Private Equity Firms

good article, Im still struggling a bit with the PE firm scam of "loading a business with debt" but am getting closer. This seems to be what ruins the company's, even healthy companys can be drained dry.

i get that once they take over the PE Firm pays themself first then has to pay on the "debt/loan/funding participants"....which wipes out the business, like Guitar Centers profit. The example relating to the Good Fellas mob movie was great! How they took over the dudes restauant and burnt it to the ground....wow

PE firms (mobster vampires in suits) scam their cut in the beginning of the big cash takeover, so as the Business-Guitar Center struggles along the PE Firm takes away from the profits and shuves in their pockets... leaving the company with even less profit to operate and pay employees.

thats my take then, PE Firm is like sucking the lifeblood from the company they bought and then one of two things happen... right?

1) the business makes more and more profit to stay alive and pay the burden of the PE Firm cut and investors cut, like paying the Mob who co-own your family business

2) business goes bankrupt and lays everyone off like a dead corpse with no blood left in it, the mobster vampires in suits walk away looking for another body to suck dry

So it isnt always like a business is drowning or being ran poorly, it might not even be in bad shape and doesnt need help!! Seems sometimes the PE Firm comes in and buys the company then just so they can do whatever they want, and rape its cash and profits.. I think this is making sense?

So is it slang worthy that instead of calling it "loaded with debt" its like "loaded with mobsters" or "loaded with vampires in suits" sucking all the money/blood dry.

and add to this mess the guitar rock hero's are now rap heros singing in a mic and using a Fruity Loops sequencer in HR land ...I do see rappers wanting the Vocal Golden Gear...like 737's and a U87 though, that sales might be up!

hey! maybe a PE Firm can buyout Neumann mics and ruin them too!
 
You forgot Ableton Live Coolcat...that's all ya need to be a star today... Hang the bloody DJ! Cause the music that he constantly plays says nothing to me about my life!

EDM is whack....but boy is it big.......

So PA systems, Computers and microphones...a keyboard here n there golden...

Yep brick n mortar for these kind of commodities is not really necessary in 2018...I sure loved being able to go to the music store when I was a teen in the 70's watch real players demo the stuff right in front of you and then let you mess with it...cool shit...but we didn't have youtube and Amazon then ....now I can watch 100's pros demo whatever I want to buy and get it delivered to my door for free with no sales tax...and if I don't like it I can send it back....

Or if I want used I can go on craigslist or Offerup and go check it out at the owners shack before I buy it...another nail in the coffin of brick n mortar stores that goes unnoticed / unmentioned....online used product venues...In the old days for used gear it was the pawn shop or the music store or the local paper..... now a couple clicks and I've got a boatload of point of purchase options....
 
Selling electric guitars.... how much of the drop off is the pricing?

come on $1900 for a Strat?
 

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So whats this mean?

Guitar Center, Inc. Announces the Expiration and Final Results of Offer to Exchange and Consent Solicitation

April 13th

Following in Gibson’s footsteps.

Guitar Center has announced the expiration and final results of its previously announced exchange offer and consent solicitation. The company had offered to exchange its existing 9.625% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2020 for 5% Cash/8% PIK notes due 2022. The Unsecured Notes have a $325 million aggregate principal amount outstanding.
 
So whats this mean?

Guitar Center, Inc. Announces the Expiration and Final Results of Offer to Exchange and Consent Solicitation

April 13th

Following in Gibson’s footsteps.

Guitar Center has announced the expiration and final results of its previously announced exchange offer and consent solicitation. The company had offered to exchange its existing 9.625% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2020 for 5% Cash/8% PIK notes due 2022. The Unsecured Notes have a $325 million aggregate principal amount outstanding.
I think this means they got enough holders of old lamps (over 95% IIRC) to trade them for new.

I read it like this. I sell you a bond for $1000 paying 10% per year for 10 years, and, in a perfect world, you'd double your money, because you'd get $100x10 + $1000 back when the bond matures. But 8 years in, I say, how about I swap that bond for another one, maybe add in a little share of the company, and you think, well, now I can probably triple my initial investment! (Imagining you'd actually ever be able to get that initial principal investment back, or the company shares would really be worth something.)

The merry-go-round keeps on going and everyone is hoping they can jump off before it stops. Some will and some will be left holding the bag.
 
thanks. that makes sense ...when I read the article it was like :wtf:


a different language , so they found someone. buying time?.....hmm?

Gibson board /investors? seems to want a new CEO and dump the losing business but so far theyve only shutdown the CustomShop.
 
Screaming headlines with no real news except that because the debt exchange succeeded they now have a higher credit rating and are seen as being more solvent! Which is kind of implausible in the face of the facts iterated, but still the story actually says bankruptcy is not imminent. Remind me not to click on news from that site in the future.
 
lol...I dont know what site it was, it just googled up GC as the latest, credit down or upgrading Im not sure.

the newest pone today mentions a new VP to get the profits up on Guitar Lessons!!! that might be the new cash-cow!
 
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