BoxheadTim said:Oh boy, private equity. That's usually not a good sign for the longevity of the company.
The moment that phrase enters any conversation about a company I put them on my deathwatch list. It rarely ends well.
This post was an interesting read.
FuzzWuzzy said:Knowing all of this, also glad I've never bought from Turner or Pelican at this point.
I had great experiences with Turner about 20 years ago when I was trying to turn a 1991 318is into my first track car. Whenever you called, you'd get Doug or Will on the phone. They knew the platform inside-out as they had been successfully campaigning E30 M3's on the BMW CCA Club Racing circuit for close to a decade at that point. They'd give you no-nonsense advice and sell you well-designed, race-tested parts at fair prices. They'd always be available to answer your questions and provide support.
Back then, the mainstream choices for BMW guys were Bavarian Autosport and BMP Designs. Both of them had serious limitations for what people like me needed. Turner was a breath of fresh air.
I go back far enough that I remember talking to Will at the counter when he was working for Henry at Noble Foreign in CT. Shame that he let his name get attached to something like this. I wonder if the race team is now a completely separate entity.
The0retical said:BoxheadTim said:Oh boy, private equity. That's usually not a good sign for the longevity of the company.
The moment that phrase enters any conversation about a company I put thenm on my deathwatch list. It rarely ends well.
This post was an interesting read.
I once worked for a company bought buy a private equity firm,it didn't go well. They moved the facility to another state and got rid of almost everyone here. Once moved, the new people didn't know much and it started failing. In order to be profitable, the equity firm started firing a manager every month until they were. Guess what, that made it worse, surprise surprise. I read that it was picked up by a bank for almost nothing at auction.
Bummer to hear about Pelican getting sold. I bought a ton of stuff for my E30 from them.
I have mixed feelings about private equity ownership. My company was sold to one a few years ago. So far, things haven't changed much -improved in some ways - but time will tell.
I never bought much from Pelican or ECS, but I guess I'll have to avoid them both now. For older Porsche stuff, Paragon has always been my go-to. For years, either Jason or Chuck would answer the phone, or it would go to voice mail and one or the other would call you back. Been a little while since I've used them since I've been, err, neglecting the 944, but their website still looks the same - pretty craptacular - so I'd assume they remain safe!
racerdave600 said:The0retical said:BoxheadTim said:Oh boy, private equity. That's usually not a good sign for the longevity of the company.
The moment that phrase enters any conversation about a company I put thenm on my deathwatch list. It rarely ends well.
This post was an interesting read.
I once worked for a company bought buy a private equity firm,it didn't go well. They moved the facility to another state and got rid of almost everyone here. Once moved, the new people didn't know much and it started failing. In order to be profitable, the equity firm started firing a manager every month until they were. Guess what, that made it worse, surprise surprise. I read that it was picked up by a bank for almost nothing at auction.
That sounds like the "beatings will continue until morale improves" management technique.
stuart in mn said:When I see these sorts of things I always wonder about the other side of the story...I'm not saying he's spreading tales, but he's obviously disgruntled about the place.
Well yeah, if even HALF of what he says is true, it would be pretty strong cause to be disgruntled!
private equity is horrible.. If you can take the stress, being one of a PE firms "new managers" is lucrative line of work... usually it dosen't work out for all parties invovled.
In reply to Dashpot :
Sounds like where I work.
I work in a power plant that's changed hands 3 times since I started there. The current owners are a large multinational corporation. Last year a major part of my bonus goals was getting rid of spare parts inventory so they wouldn't have to pay taxes on them...., We only have 3 operators on a shift and 2 shifts are running short a man because the company won't allow us to hire replacements. I expect my shift will go the same way, as one of my operators is waiting for confirmation on his new job with another company.
What sucks is that before ECS Tuning became ECS Tuning they were Euro-Car Service. Family run, father, sons, daughters. I used them with my '91 VW GTi and we ended up dropping a G60 motor into the car.
One of the sons was interested in getting into the internet parts business back then, which was 1998 and that's the genesis of this monster now...
Been doing business with FCP since pre-internet, back when they were Foreign Car Parts of Groton. Always thought they were honest and fair.
I've bought stuff from ECS too, and I haven't had any problems but I have noticed that they've been 'buying the market' lately and this may explain why. In hindsight, it correlates to the Turner acquisition. Disappointed to hear that Pelican has been acquired too- I always appreciated their non-commerce web content.
My e28 was my first car, and when I started buying parts for it, Rock Auto and AutoHaus AZ were my go to, really they are still my go to.
I picked up an e46 late last year and needed to do some maintenance. ECS was recommended to me and I got some things. I had a few orders that were totally fine, and then was looking for a specific part number wheel speed sensor, specifically ordered the part, by part number, from ECS, and got the wrong part. Twice. Ordered the same part number from AutoHaus AZ for a few dollars more, and it showed up in 2 days, the correct part. Not impressed with ECS at this point.
The concept that 'money is a meritocracy' is pretty much the foundational lie of American Capitalism. The reality is that the larger the dollar figure, the less likely the money was accumulated through actual competence and effort. Most of the 'rich' people in this country were born that way.
If you believe that, then it implicitly follows that most of the people in a position to buy, repackage, and resell other fairly large financial assets are of dubious credential when it comes to their business acumen.
I got a good lesson in mega-corporation logic when the bank that financed my veterinary practice sold out to the mega bank I'll call WF.
We hung on through the recession grossing about a half million a year, but I couldn't keep up with the payments. WF turned down my $200,000 cash buyout offer after foreclosure and dumped the assets of the business on Craigslist for almost nothing.
FCP prices and shipping look pretty damn good. I'll be doin' business there. Thanks for the reference.
Doesn't suprise me one bit.
Ian F said:I have mixed feelings about private equity ownership. My company was sold to one a few years ago. So far, things haven't changed much -improved in some ways - but time will tell.
The company I work for has been owned by 3 of them in the last twenty years. I've seen no negative effects. I can't say that about when Gates (yes, that Gates) owned us in between one of them.
I’ve known multiple people who have worked at ECS but none worked there long, can’t believe Pelican sold out too. Dang
FcpEuro and eeuroparts have been my go-tos for about 4 years now, and I really hope they hold out. Both of them ship parts out very quickly, mostly same day. ECS is much slower to ship, but I’ve been lucky to have got the right parts from them when I’ve ordered and I kind of like their “Schwaben” tools line.
Never been a Euro guy but hearing this makes me concerned for how much of the domestic speed parts market Holley has been acquiring in the last couple years. I hope they can do a better job of managing all of their acquisitions better than it sounds like ECS is. Granted the Euro and Domestic parts markets have different dynamics to them, it's just hard not to notice the patterns.
racerdave600 said:The0retical said:BoxheadTim said:Oh boy, private equity. That's usually not a good sign for the longevity of the company.
The moment that phrase enters any conversation about a company I put thenm on my deathwatch list. It rarely ends well.
This post was an interesting read.
I once worked for a company bought buy a private equity firm,it didn't go well. They moved the facility to another state and got rid of almost everyone here. Once moved, the new people didn't know much and it started failing. In order to be profitable, the equity firm started firing a manager every month until they were. Guess what, that made it worse, surprise surprise. I read that it was picked up by a bank for almost nothing at auction.
So... what is the point of buying things just to destroy their value?
In reply to Duke :
You are probably looking at things with too long of a time horizon. Here's a common play, with Toys'R'Us as an example:
Toys'R'Us was an ok company with solid fundamentals. Profitable, not outstanding. To a regular person, it's a good business selling toys.
But, look at it a different way - if it were a person, it has an excellent credit score and low loans. Finance enough to buy it, take out a bunch of loans in Toys'R'Us's name to pay yourself back + a little extra, cut some costs to juice the stock price, then pocket some cash and sell it or spin it off. You are richer now. Toys'R'Us is headed for bankruptcy because it has more loans than it can afford and you probably cut whatever made it special during the cost cutting effort.
The end, no moral.
In reply to Duke :
I'm no financial expert, but I get a couple of financial investment newsletters (it's fascinating to read views on current events from the "greed" POV) and what a PEF does is buy a company and then look for ways to leverage the value in that company in such a way to transfer wealth from the company to the PEF. The ways they do this can appear from the outside to be incredibly self-defeating, but the investors can get incredibly rich in the process. Sears is probably the greatest example of this. How Eddie Lampert has sucked the value out of Sears over the past decade or so will eventually be the subject of an interesting book once the company has finally been put to rest. The story is still unfolding so the final chapters have yet to be written.
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