Today the United States oldest gun maker Remington Outdoor Company Inc, which owns Remington Arms, filed for Bankruptcy protection. The anti-gun lobby has taken this as a sign that the guns and gun companies are finally starting to decline. Unfortunately, Remington’s collapse is only a sign of bad management and will do nothing to stem the tide of easy to find, cheap guns.
Remington expanded production several in the Obama era, especially after Sandy Hook, as Americans feared their misunderstood second amendment rights were going to be taken away, resulting in spiking gun sales. Then after the flip flopping sometimes NRA supporter Donald Trump became President, all gun manufacturers including Remington found that sales declined because there was little fear of new gun restrictions.
In 2007 high profile private equity firm Cerberus bought Remington and started loading up the debt. In the end Remington took on nearly 1 Billion (yes, that is a “B”) in debt and was stuck with huge inventories they could not sell to service that debt.
As private equity firms are want to do, Cerberus announced they would sell Remington claiming that they were responding to pressure from investors angry about the Sandy Hook massacre. However, they wanted too much money and failed for find a buyer.
Even worse, if you think is the end of a major gun company, is that it appears Remington will not even shut down operations or be consolidated into another company. It seems that Remington has a plan to restructure their debt using the suasion that comes with Bankruptcy protection and will go on making millions of guns. They may not even need to change their name.
Law makers in the US will have just as many guns and gun lobbyists to deal with tomorrow as they do today.
1 Comment
Quibby · June 23, 2021 at 7:10 am
Good information. Guns are a part of US culture and it will take more than a few hundred dead children to make us want to change things.