Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Boomsticks: Interesting.

Smith & Wesson, a company that was acquired from its previous owners for what was essentially pocket change only a few years ago, has just announced their acquisition of Thompson/Center Arms for $102 million, cash on the barrelhead.

Thompson/Center offers the unique Encore and Contender multi-caliber single-shot rifle/pistol/shotgun/muzzle-loader systems, as well as having a dominating presence in the black-powder hunting world. Their products are almost universally recognized as some of the most mell-made, innovative weapons of their type. The only thing they lack is marketing, and Smith & Wesson's new management has proved they have marketing savvy in spades, having brought a company out of the triage ward and back into the black.

Now they have a foot in the door in the hunting world, having already launched a play for a stake in the military/LE market with the M&P line, and still maintaining a strong market share in the civilian CCW segment. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

(H/T to Les Jones.)
(Edited to fix bone-headed slip. Thanks to alert reader 1894c.)

8 comments:

  1. "Smith & Wesson's new management has proved they have marketing savvy in spades, having brought a company out of the triage ward and back into the red."

    Don't you mean the black?

    The red is when you lose money.

    Not nit picking...

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  2. What a great job they've done coming back from their corporate near-death experience. Now if they would just buy all the rights to Indian motorcycles.......

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  3. Look at S&W stock over the last 5 years.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SWHC&t=5y

    The latest little blip somehow came right after they announced record quartly profit earnings

    http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SWHC&t=3m&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=

    So the dip happened before the T/C announcement. What's up with that?

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  4. Are those "mell made" guns made by Mel Gibson or Mel Torme?

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  5. Only one mell-apropism repaired per post.

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  6. M&P line?

    Tamara, please tell me you're joking. Your link doesn't work. I may be busy with the grad school, job, and fambly thang, but when did S&W come up with a "line" of anything creditible called M&P since the artist latterly called the M10?

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  7. It isn't exactly "cash on the barrelhead" that they are using to buy T/C. They are selling some stock and getting financing for the rest.

    Sure, they're paying cash, but it wasn't like they had the cash in the bank or anything. They're selling what are assets and borrowing the remainder. You've got to be in pretty bad financial shape to not be able to do that.

    Just sayin'...

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