ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Carnegie set to find a buyer.
Oh Dear.
Too long to list....
bayerische: Carnegie set to find a buyer. Oh Dear.
An investment bank acting as their consultant to find an investor/ buyer.
Could be a good outcome yet.
Let's hope so.
Graham
Stock price +12%. Nowhere near comfortable yet though...
--mika
Why 'Oh Dear '?
They are looking for opportunities.
What else would you have expected?
MM
There is a tv - and there is a BV
Any smart company is always looking for the right investors ....
we tend to forget there is more to design than designing.
vikinger: bayerische: Carnegie set to find a buyer. Oh Dear. An investment bank acting as their consultant to find an investor/ buyer. Could be a good outcome yet. Let's hope so. Graham
.... but beware of the asset strippers....
I apologize if the answer is a simple one. But let's say for the sake of argument that the worst happens. B&O is no more or it is divided up etc. What becomes of those who have purchased their products a la warranties etc. Will they still be honored and fulfilled across the globe?
I would imagine that many potential buyers of products who may have heard this news might hold off their purchases and place the company in an even more precarious position.
Why is Linn not looking for a buyer?
jc:Why is Linn not looking for a buyer?
What I'm afraid about is someone like Samsung buying them, rebranding other cheap stuff, simply replacing plastics with aluminum, and Bang & Olufsen logo where the other logo was. Example;
Panasonic with Leica. (Although Panasonic don't own Leica)
If an Asian conglomerate buys B&O, the people in Struer better start seeking new jobs quick, the staff in Czech too.
Millemissen: Why 'Oh Dear '? They are looking for opportunities. What else would you have expected? MM
Always seeing the positive. Good for you.
linn know what their doing,there goal is always to produce the best sound possible.They are in control of this by keeping everything in house,from design to build,also they have their own record label,and download site.
They milked vinyl with the lp12 and still do well with it.
They showed customers a clear upgrade path with making speakers activ and multi room ,also system integration from source to playback.
They made the best CD player the cd12, then they were one of the first companies to ditch cd completely.
They pioneered the ds systems which can be upgraded and streaming as the best source,receiving extra revenue from their download site for hd downloads.
They have researched and released their new exakt technology with full dsp activ speakers,but also available for other brands,extra revenue again.
They have such a following that their prices go up and still they sell,everyone complains about B&o prices etc look at Linns price list.
I would rather pay more for B&o made in house in Denmark, and I will still argue the quality is better,than when they started producing in the other factories.
People pay for design,quality,country of origin and history.and B&o should have followed that path.
People buy patek watches,due to the history,the brand,origin,just as much as the movement and craftsmanship.
Amg engines being built by an individual and signing a plaque.
r m williams boots are bought due to the quality,craftsmanship,also the companies heritage and they are handbuilt in Australia.
B&o should have milked their history,quality craftsmanship,design,and individuality and Danish dna as others do,without lowering prices.
I paid £13k for a bv5 because I loved the design,it stood out,when I know I could have got a panasonic plasma as I wanted it and set myself a goal.
Roll on 7 years and I don't feel the same way about a new avant,even though it's half the price,it looks like any other high end flatscreen from the other brands.Its not aspirational enough to want to own it.
I know moving technology, is hard to differentiate yourself from the masses,but if you stick to your ethos demand will come.
The luxury markets are still booming,look at watches,handbags,shoes etc,I know women not on a high income,who are willing to spend 3 months wages on a pair of loubotin shoes and a certain handbag,as they aspire to own them,just like a certain car or watch or B&o system.
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Shares in Bang & Olufsen climbed by as much as 15 per cent on Monday after reports that the company had appointed an investment bank to seek a buyer.
The luxury Danish television and audio maker — and one of Europe’s last remaining consumer electronic brands — has appointed Carnegie to help with a sale, according to Denmark’s Berlingske newspaper.
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The company declined to comment on the report. However, chairman Ole Anderson told local media last month that B&O was “too small to be independent” and was asking itself “whether to seek some partners”.
Since the financial crisis B&O has struggled to adapt to a rapidly changing consumer electronics market in which big companies dominate and consumers have become more cautious. The company warned in December that profit margins would be negative after production problems meant that it missed out on Christmas trade. It is due to report interim results on Tuesday.
Chief executive Tue Mantoni, a former McKinsey consultant and Triumph Motorcycles chief executive, was brought in three years ago to restructure the company. He has introduced a cheaper line of products meant to boost sales and attract younger buyers, and targeted expansion in China. But both moves ran into difficulties last year with falling sales.
The company’s woes saw B&O become the most shorted stock in western Europe last week, according to Markit, with hedge funds betting that the share price would fall even further after more than halving since the summer. More than 12 per cent of the company’s free-floating stock was held by those betting against the stock.
B&O has a market capitalisation of DKr1.6bn ($242m) and a turnover in the last financial period of DKr2.9bn.
Carnegie in Denmark did not respond to a request for comment.
B&O shares were up 10.7 per cent at DKr40.4 in mid-afternoon trading in Copenhagen.
Maybe we should buy b&o together. The forum has 32000 + members,B&o has a market cap of 1,762.46, dkk (M) buying 51% of it would cost as little as 3200 euros a member...
Wouter
Ah, you know... A little B&O here, a little there
butch1: I would rather pay more for B&o made in house in Denmark, and I will still argue the quality is better,than when they started producing in the other factories. People pay for design,quality,country of origin and history.and B&o should have followed that path. People buy patek watches,due to the history,the brand,origin,just as much as the movement and craftsmanship. Amg engines being built by an individual and signing a plaque. r m williams boots are bought due to the quality,craftsmanship,also the companies heritage and they are handbuilt in Australia. B&o should have milked their history,quality craftsmanship,design,and individuality and Danish dna as others do,without lowering prices.
I agree. However — when did B&O lower their prices? Apart from their TV range, haven't the prices been going up steadily, regardless of where they are manufactured?
As for the Play range, I could understand those products being made in Czech (or even China), given their relatively lower prices.
KMA
B&O product history since 1991: Ridiculously long to list in a signature.
Raeuber:Very good idea indeed!
................if we wanted to kill it entirely!!
We can't even agree here when there's nothing at stake!!
Ban boring signatures!
I don't think it's that important if a product is actually produced in Denmark. If I buy a Volvo car, it may well be produced in Gent, Belgium. It's not a lesser Volvo because of that. My iPhone is a high quality product, made in China, at a very high profit for Apple in the USA.
Perhaps the main problem of B&O is that the lost contact with their supposed customers/target audience. It's there perhaps that a company like Linn understands their followers better. However; B&O made some smart decisions; going into the car audio is a succes, the Beoplay line is a good idea also, but it needs time to get known by the public. Time is essential, and to buy time you need money. B&O is getting into newer technologies faster than ever before; remember the 90's, they were always far behind. For the people who think the New Avant isn't so special B&O; I don't think so too, but then there's the BV 11, a superb product and very much B&O. I think David Lewis is still very much missed by the company, and not only in a personal way I mean.
jc:I don't think it's that important if a product is actually produced in Denmark. If I buy a Volvo car, it may well be produced in Gent, Belgium.
Real Volvos are were made in Göteborg
* * *
Also, if Beoworld designed a B&O product, it would have slots for 6 CDs, have an open reel recorder on one side and a tangential turntable on the other, have an RF CRT for browsing online 8K services, be made in Denmark of rare earth metals, would be delivered airborne by its own propulsion and cost not more than a Mac Mini.
tournedos: Also, if Beoworld designed a B&O product, it would have slots for 6 CDs, have an open reel recorder on one side and a tangential turntable on the other, have an RF CRT for browsing online 8K services, be made in Denmark of rare earth metals, would be delivered airborne by its own propulsion and cost not more than a Mac Mini.
Let me expand on your excellent prototype: It'll be a Beosound 9000 but for vinyl. DONE.
You can't compare LINN vs B&O.
160 employees vs 2000
a completely different philosophy
LINN: take the best parts and produce the best audiophile sound system for a small group of buyers (most can't afford it)
B&O: use upper class components, it should sound good, look good, feel good, and should be easy to handle. The system may cost more, but the prize range has to be so affordable that quiet a lot of units are going to be produced.
Butch 1 is 100% correct on his thinking BUT I remember that we were all arguing the very same thing way back in 2011 and 2012.
When it is a super expensive product costing 4 or 5 or 10 times more than a quality mainstream brand like SONY or Panasonic, Country of Origin is vital. B&O should kept everything in Denmark. As far as I can see, it is obvious that it was pure greed on the company by making thing in China. An A8 that's made in China selling at £950 is hardly cheap by todays standards for a basic pair of speakers and a little amp! The company became fat and greedy and lost direction and their problems really serves them right as they lost their DNA in pursuit of pure greed and answering to fat cat shareholders.
Puncher: Raeuber:Very good idea indeed! ................if we wanted to kill it entirely!! We can't even agree here when there's nothing at stake!!
So true.
Paul W:Butch 1 is 100% correct on his thinking BUT I remember that we were all arguing the very same thing way back in 2011 and 2012.When it is a super expensive product costing 4 or 5 or 10 times more than a quality mainstream brand like SONY or Panasonic, Country of Origin is vital. B&O should kept everything in Denmark. As far as I can see, it is obvious that it was pure greed on the company by making thing in China. An A8 that's made in China selling at £950 is hardly cheap by todays standards for a basic pair of speakers and a little amp! The company became fat and greedy and lost direction and their problems really serves them right as they lost their DNA in pursuit of pure greed and answering to fat cat shareholders.
Your right you cannot compare linn with B&o.
With a mere 200 employees and After investing money back into the business through research,they launched exakt and doubled their profits in a year to £1.91m with £19.1m global sales.That is a company heading in the right direction,and they still have not sold out to the cut cost manufacturers in China.Still built in Scotland and signed by name with the final assemblers name,it's the small things like that I love.
I have had a factory tour many times as its only 70 miles away and the passion for the brand ,the family and all the staff give is so refreshing.
I bought a Arne Jacobsen egg chair,I chose a fritz Hansen one mainly as it is Danish and should exude quality,not a cheaper copy of badly made construction with no history behind it except copying a designers vision.
I know it's been mentioned before,but every country is famous for making the best of something or the other,if its cars,clothes,watches,furniture.
i am off to drink a bottle of the finest single malt scottish whiskey distilled in Scotland and bottled in China.lol
Beosound Stage, Beovision 8-40, Beolit 20, Beosound Explore.
Chris Townsend:There is only one company that can wake you up with an alarm clock that resembles a flute, that then automatically turns on the TV made by that company which uniquely uses WISA to send sound to its in house active speakers, that also makes some of the best car audio systems on the planet, that also makes uber cool Bluetooth wireless headphones etc Linn, Naim, B&W they all make similar great stuff, but none can come even close to making such a unique range of high quality tech. Not even remotely so.
Linn, Naim, B&W they all make similar great stuff, but none can come even close to making such a unique range of high quality tech. Not even remotely so.
Exactly!
BeoNut since '75
B&O is a survivor.
It is not the first crisis in the soon 90 year old history.
StUrrock: Paul W: Butch 1 is 100% correct on his thinking BUT I remember that we were all arguing the very same thing way back in 2011 and 2012. When it is a super expensive product costing 4 or 5 or 10 times more than a quality mainstream brand like SONY or Panasonic, Country of Origin is vital. B&O should kept everything in Denmark. As far as I can see, it is obvious that it was pure greed on the company by making thing in China. An A8 that's made in China selling at £950 is hardly cheap by todays standards for a basic pair of speakers and a little amp! The company became fat and greedy and lost direction and their problems really serves them right as they lost their DNA in pursuit of pure greed and answering to fat cat shareholders. A8 being sold for £950 then apparently being sold off in John Lewis for £620. Wherever it's made, that price fluctuation is a big problem for a premium brand.
Paul W: Butch 1 is 100% correct on his thinking BUT I remember that we were all arguing the very same thing way back in 2011 and 2012. When it is a super expensive product costing 4 or 5 or 10 times more than a quality mainstream brand like SONY or Panasonic, Country of Origin is vital. B&O should kept everything in Denmark. As far as I can see, it is obvious that it was pure greed on the company by making thing in China. An A8 that's made in China selling at £950 is hardly cheap by todays standards for a basic pair of speakers and a little amp! The company became fat and greedy and lost direction and their problems really serves them right as they lost their DNA in pursuit of pure greed and answering to fat cat shareholders.
A8 being sold for £950 then apparently being sold off in John Lewis for £620.
Wherever it's made, that price fluctuation is a big problem for a premium brand.
Indeed.
Louis Vuitton for example never has a sale, if a model isn't selling it's taken off the shelves and most likely destroyed. Can't precisely compare, someone making leather goods to an electronic company, but heavily discounting premium products seldom works.
While new models are *sometimes* fun and needed, it's also IMHO important to save and build on future successes. Someone mentioned the new Avant as an example. To be honest the new avant does not do much for me. The screen is beautiful, but the design of the product isn't really striking to me. Now we can come to the old argument, "a TV is hard to design". Perhaps so, but the BV9, BV5 where revolutionary designs. Much better than the original Avant. The style has been kept with the BV10 and BV11. However making these pencil thin made 50% of the TV bad, the sound. The BV9 is absolutely amazing in it's Full HD version, as it's packs punch, design wise, sound wise and screen wise.
I don't need a pencil thin TV, as a "fatter" TV makes it possible to hide a lot of stuff that would other wise require other means of hiding them.
@ Chris Townsend Yep I Agree keep updating things like the Bv 11 Panel to 4k ect and also the Bs System 4 to a 4k output!
I would think the following 3 scenarios are most likely to happen.
1 . B&O gets bought up by an audio or luxury brand, say Harman international or LVMH, brands that are close to B&O regarding key values ( Design, Style, Luxury". This would be a best case scenario, B&O would stay almost the same, some of the most unprofitable stuff would get sold off or just discontinued, besides that it's same same.
2. Venture capitalist , they may see some value and would most likely break off some parts and sell it or best case just dump some money in B&O in hope of selling it as whole 5 years down the road...
3. Big manufacturing probably Asian, and I'm not talking about a brand but more wholesale/OEM. So $2 headphones re branded to sell for $80 and that sort of crap... bye bye B&O.
Hi Tomas, let's hope it's number 1!
I'm confused about the selling, what exactly is there in sale?
- The whole of Bang & Olufsen brand?
- Or just the Audio-TV division.
If its only the Audio-TV division, what happens with the Aluminium division, and the Medical division.
Could somebody please explain, I can't find the answer nowhere on the net.
"Believe nothing you read and only half of what you see, let your ears tell you the truth."
I'm amazed that some think this is some sort of temporary blip!
In brief B&O can't sell enough of what they have to offer in the AV arena, either too few people want them, too few can afford them, or else they cost B&O too much to manufacture.
How well do you imagine B&O have done in the TV market since they started with flat panels ~ 2006, they've struggled to keep apace with the accelerating technology while the competition have released really quite decent TV's (some of which even look quite decent), and how do you see that changing in the near future?
In the audio sector, the traditional CD system in the corner has disappeared, many moved to Sonos type systems, some Mac or PC based. B&O released a £5K PC with a posh (small) tethered display and scroll wheels. While some of the speakers are excellent no one buys them if they don't have a B&O system - refer to points above!
Before you reply with "my BV's brilliant" or "the Playmaker is relatively cheap", refer to point one above - not enough people agree with you!
As no one here wants B&O to take measures to seriously reduce their costs, perhaps the way forward is to increase their product prices??
They really need to concentrate their design effort and money on a market they can definitely identity and quantify - maybe it means dropping TV's, who knows, they need laser focus.
All this while the Euro looks like it could implode at any time, China is having (for them) a bit of a blip and Russia could shortly be taking money home in wheelbarrows!
Not much more than rumours and speculation yet. Let's see what happens.
Chris: I'm confused about the selling, what exactly is there in sale? - The whole of Bang & Olufsen brand? - Or just the Audio-TV division. If its only the Audio-TV division, what happens with the Aluminium division, and the Medical division. Could somebody please explain, I can't find the answer nowhere on the net.
Noone knows!
They are all just speculating - journalist, financial analysts and of course the Beoworlders.
Keep it cool!