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Briggs & Stratton to sell most of its products business
#1
PTmowerMech
PTmowerMech
Briggs & Stratton to sell most of its products business
Focusing on engines and power application instead
Wauwatosa-based Briggs & Stratton Corp. plans to sell the majority of its products businesses to shift the company’s focus toward the application of power.
Briggs reported net sales of $1.84 billion last year, with the products segment accounting for $932 million. The company said its new focus would be on four areas with about $1 billion in combined revenue.
The areas of focus will include Briggs & Stratton residential engines, Vanguard commercial engines, standby power generation and the company’s new Vanguard commercial battery systems.
Briggs said it plans to.............
Focusing on engines and power application instead
Wauwatosa-based Briggs & Stratton Corp. plans to sell the majority of its products businesses to shift the company’s focus toward the application of power.
Briggs reported net sales of $1.84 billion last year, with the products segment accounting for $932 million. The company said its new focus would be on four areas with about $1 billion in combined revenue.
The areas of focus will include Briggs & Stratton residential engines, Vanguard commercial engines, standby power generation and the company’s new Vanguard commercial battery systems.
Briggs said it plans to.............
#2
tom3
tom3
Briggs plans to .....shift all production to China?
#4
StarTech
StarTech
Hopefully it not a result of the major parts problem they created last year. I had parts on back order for a long time. I even had one engine's heads to go NLA then to a pair and finally when a I got the one head that I was needing it was double in price. And now Power Distributor is trying to sell a 29 usd fuel bowl for 99 usd. Luckily I got in three of them before the price jack up.
Yes they planning or having to get get rid of the premier lawn and garden and turf care equipment sold under the Ferris®, Billy Goat®, Simplicity®, Snapper®, and Snapper Pro® brands. But I kinda doubt they are going to shift everything to China but a lot of it is already made in China. That might explain why recently they start posting manuals and IPLs in Chinese on the Power Portal site.
By selling the lines it is going to create a mess for us techs yet again. I still dealing with the Murray Ohio failure here as multiple OEMs brought out the line with Briggs owning and licensing out the rights to make the equipment under the Murray name. Boy my neighbor is really going like to heard that they are planning dumping the Snapper line, he just brought a Snapper ZTR last Spring. I just hope who buys the above lines provides support for the older products. But it could like many products that had sold to others where we have no older products support but they want us to recommend them still.
Personally it looks like Briggs is a failing company due to mismanagement but is just my opinion. As we all know it all about making a huge profit at the expense of their reputation that previous management manage to build with the public.
Here is the March 6, 2020 press release.
Briggs 3/20/2020 Investors News
PT if have access to other press releases please post those links as I would like to read them too as this does affect my business as I need to what products I should now be recommending to my current customers.
Yes they planning or having to get get rid of the premier lawn and garden and turf care equipment sold under the Ferris®, Billy Goat®, Simplicity®, Snapper®, and Snapper Pro® brands. But I kinda doubt they are going to shift everything to China but a lot of it is already made in China. That might explain why recently they start posting manuals and IPLs in Chinese on the Power Portal site.
By selling the lines it is going to create a mess for us techs yet again. I still dealing with the Murray Ohio failure here as multiple OEMs brought out the line with Briggs owning and licensing out the rights to make the equipment under the Murray name. Boy my neighbor is really going like to heard that they are planning dumping the Snapper line, he just brought a Snapper ZTR last Spring. I just hope who buys the above lines provides support for the older products. But it could like many products that had sold to others where we have no older products support but they want us to recommend them still.
Personally it looks like Briggs is a failing company due to mismanagement but is just my opinion. As we all know it all about making a huge profit at the expense of their reputation that previous management manage to build with the public.
Here is the March 6, 2020 press release.
Briggs 3/20/2020 Investors News
PT if have access to other press releases please post those links as I would like to read them too as this does affect my business as I need to what products I should now be recommending to my current customers.
#5
I
ILENGINE
I
ILENGINE
The Brute products, Murray, and the Snapper Walmart products have been farmed out for years. I suspect the pressure washers and portable generators will be picked up by Generac. Murray will go to MTD, and Brute tillers will be Earthquake which they make, service, and warranty them now. I don't know what will happen to the Simplicity group. I suspect either MTD or Husqvarna. But Toro has been active lately so that is also possible,even though the Toro consumer products has been farmed to MTD for several years now.
Sounds like Briggs is trying to avoid bankruptcy, Further reading kind of hints that the Sears bankruptcy may of tanked Briggs.
Sounds like Briggs is trying to avoid bankruptcy, Further reading kind of hints that the Sears bankruptcy may of tanked Briggs.
#6
StarTech
StarTech
Possible. Look at what Walmart did to Murray Ohio when they drop Murray mowers. When this happen it took out Tecumseh too. Murray mower got pickup but Tecumseh didn't; although, their transmission division got snag by Husqvarna. Still can't get parts for the old Tecumseh Peerless transaxles.
I got a LTH2000 in the shop now that I got fabricate an alignment jig for since the jig is no longer available. But I think got out of the repair job for now. It has a froze up disengagement shaft, easy fix once I get to it without parts other then an oring.
I got a LTH2000 in the shop now that I got fabricate an alignment jig for since the jig is no longer available. But I think got out of the repair job for now. It has a froze up disengagement shaft, easy fix once I get to it without parts other then an oring.
#7
I
ILENGINE
I
ILENGINE
I am not sure Walmart dropped Murray as much as the Murray bankruptcy and subsequent purchase by Briggs, and then as part of the agreement couldn't use the Murray name for 5 years. Which is how we ended up with the Brute name. Another side effect of the Murray purchase by Briggs was MTD stopped using Briggs engines on their products for a period and started the Chinese engine import for their products but also upped the use of Tecumseh until their own demise in 2010. Briggs were used on Murray and Snapper at Walmart as part of the license agreement.
#8
PTmowerMech
PTmowerMech
I didn't read as much into as you guys did. Seems more of a downsize thing to me. Getting stuff off their plate, sort of speak.
#9
StarTech
StarTech
Well I have been through one corporate merger (buyout) when Burroughs off loaded its financial division. What a nightmare I hired into. When SRC got things under control they layoff over 300 field service techs that only 3 months earlier signed non compete contracts.
I also have seen several corporations just completely under when they started downsizing. Kinda learned to very wary when one start off loading assets.
I also have seen several corporations just completely under when they started downsizing. Kinda learned to very wary when one start off loading assets.
#10
I
ILENGINE
I
ILENGINE
I have been through the Murray bankruptcy, the bankruptcy and selloff of McCulloch, and strategic reintroduction with MTD before the final purchase and demise by Husqvarna. The Dolmar to Makita changeover and all that involved. The purchase of Troybilt by MTD and the splitting up of Gardenway which some of it was purchased by Murray, and you know that story. The purchase of Dr Power by Generac. And can't forget the demise of Tecumseh and peerless gear and transmission.
#11
I
ILENGINE
I
ILENGINE
Very true you need to be wary. I am now wondering if the Briggs parts fiasco was due to lack of funding to pay their parts suppliers. Looks like their stock dropped like 40% in August last year due to the slow sales and lower expected returns last year. Now Kohler is moving their tech support and warranty authorization in house at the end of the month instead of being through your distributor.Well I have been one corporate merger (buyout) when Burroughs off loaded its financial division. What a nightmare I hired into. When SRC got things under control they layoff over 300 field service techs that only 3 months earlier signed non compete contracts.
I also have seen several corporations just completely under when they started downsizing. Kinda learned to very wary when one start off loading assets.
#12
B
bertsmobile1
B
bertsmobile1
The writing is on the wall for Briggs.
They can not make engines cheap enough to compete with what is coming out of China thus their market share is only going one way & that is down.
Refinancing right now is a very good idea as money has never been so cheap they should be able to get the $ 200,000,000 at less than 2% so that will drop the existing interest payments substantially.
I do not know about the USA brands that Briggs bought but the Australian brand Victa was acquired because Victa was broke & defaulted on their payments to B & S then on top of that fitted Chinese engines and even got some of their push mowers made in China . The debt to B & S was secured against shares in Victa and under Australian company law any one who acquires 17% or more of the shares in a company is obliged to either make a full take over offer or sell down to less than 9 % . Victa at that time was being run by a hedge fund and loosing money hand over fist due to trash products so B & S would have never recovered the full debt by selling down thus it was a hostile take over .
I would imagine that the take over of Murray at least would have been along similar lines so these were more a case of debt protection rather than a long term strategic plan.
In the long term Briggs only have 2 ways to survive .
1) vertical intergration so they have a captive market for their engines which makes the finished product cheaper so possibly competative with imports and this includes buying out your suppliers so you own everything thus can opperate on a substantially reduced margins because all of the profit from every part comes back to you .
2) divest all of the mower companies and invest all of the money overseas ( China , India & South Africa ) while abandoning USA manufacture all together .
Full long term vertical intergration runs the risk of being undercut by cheaper imports on your end product . If I buy 200 or more I can get the current Murray , branded with my name for $ 450 ( US ) on the wharf out of China . And of course your customers who are now in competition with you for the end product sourcing their engines elsewhere as Toro & MTD have already done.
So it is a zero sum game.
Go broke protecting your market share by building your own whole goods or go broke because you loose so much market share for the engines it is no longer profitable to operate .
This is the end sum game of unregulated capitalism where everyone runs on unsustainably low profit margins to drive down prices and hopes to survive on a larger turn over of cheaper goods .
It is what killed Tecumseh and it is what will kill Briggs & Stratton. If they are only running on an 8% margin then they are kaput . Down here you could not even get an overdraft running on 8% .
I will imagine that they will sell the brands at a mark down price with the proviso that all of the brands continue to use Briggs engines exclusively for x number of years .
In the mean time they will invest in new plants in China and ultimately stop manufacturing in the USA completely .
Consolidated capital knows no patriotism just where to make the largest return to shareholders and the company laws force directors to chase the biggest return regardless of the ultimate effect on the company.
And when the big shareholders have sucked the last drop of blood out of Briggs they will just take their money somewhere else and suck them dry .
The company laws need a major upgrade , and that is world wide to force directors to value the longevity & security of the company not just this years dividend but considering the power of the large hedge funds , pension funds and other megga cash investors that will not happen .There are hundreds of funds that are so cashed up they could short sell Briggs ( or any other top 200 companies ) down to a 1¢ share price and not even notice it on their final return because they have been allowed to get too big
None of them care where anything is made just so long as they are getting maximum returns on their investments and if that means 30% of the population is unemployed the that just makes their investment dollars more powerful.
Now you can all call me a pinko commie leftist liberal if it makes you feel happy but I have watched helpless while our highly adversary political party system destroyed manufacturing down here & I can see it doing the same thing over there .
Companies like Sears, Lowes & particularly Wallmart are destroying your country because they have been allowed to become too big & too dominant .
And I find this quite amazing as the USA was the very first country to evoke anti monopoly laws way back in the 50's because the governments then could see the problem of having too few players in a market thus reducing the competition that the capitalist free market system is supposed to nurture & protect yet in the past 3 decades seems to be encouraging monopoly situations.
They can not make engines cheap enough to compete with what is coming out of China thus their market share is only going one way & that is down.
Refinancing right now is a very good idea as money has never been so cheap they should be able to get the $ 200,000,000 at less than 2% so that will drop the existing interest payments substantially.
I do not know about the USA brands that Briggs bought but the Australian brand Victa was acquired because Victa was broke & defaulted on their payments to B & S then on top of that fitted Chinese engines and even got some of their push mowers made in China . The debt to B & S was secured against shares in Victa and under Australian company law any one who acquires 17% or more of the shares in a company is obliged to either make a full take over offer or sell down to less than 9 % . Victa at that time was being run by a hedge fund and loosing money hand over fist due to trash products so B & S would have never recovered the full debt by selling down thus it was a hostile take over .
I would imagine that the take over of Murray at least would have been along similar lines so these were more a case of debt protection rather than a long term strategic plan.
In the long term Briggs only have 2 ways to survive .
1) vertical intergration so they have a captive market for their engines which makes the finished product cheaper so possibly competative with imports and this includes buying out your suppliers so you own everything thus can opperate on a substantially reduced margins because all of the profit from every part comes back to you .
2) divest all of the mower companies and invest all of the money overseas ( China , India & South Africa ) while abandoning USA manufacture all together .
Full long term vertical intergration runs the risk of being undercut by cheaper imports on your end product . If I buy 200 or more I can get the current Murray , branded with my name for $ 450 ( US ) on the wharf out of China . And of course your customers who are now in competition with you for the end product sourcing their engines elsewhere as Toro & MTD have already done.
So it is a zero sum game.
Go broke protecting your market share by building your own whole goods or go broke because you loose so much market share for the engines it is no longer profitable to operate .
This is the end sum game of unregulated capitalism where everyone runs on unsustainably low profit margins to drive down prices and hopes to survive on a larger turn over of cheaper goods .
It is what killed Tecumseh and it is what will kill Briggs & Stratton. If they are only running on an 8% margin then they are kaput . Down here you could not even get an overdraft running on 8% .
I will imagine that they will sell the brands at a mark down price with the proviso that all of the brands continue to use Briggs engines exclusively for x number of years .
In the mean time they will invest in new plants in China and ultimately stop manufacturing in the USA completely .
Consolidated capital knows no patriotism just where to make the largest return to shareholders and the company laws force directors to chase the biggest return regardless of the ultimate effect on the company.
And when the big shareholders have sucked the last drop of blood out of Briggs they will just take their money somewhere else and suck them dry .
The company laws need a major upgrade , and that is world wide to force directors to value the longevity & security of the company not just this years dividend but considering the power of the large hedge funds , pension funds and other megga cash investors that will not happen .There are hundreds of funds that are so cashed up they could short sell Briggs ( or any other top 200 companies ) down to a 1¢ share price and not even notice it on their final return because they have been allowed to get too big
None of them care where anything is made just so long as they are getting maximum returns on their investments and if that means 30% of the population is unemployed the that just makes their investment dollars more powerful.
Now you can all call me a pinko commie leftist liberal if it makes you feel happy but I have watched helpless while our highly adversary political party system destroyed manufacturing down here & I can see it doing the same thing over there .
Companies like Sears, Lowes & particularly Wallmart are destroying your country because they have been allowed to become too big & too dominant .
And I find this quite amazing as the USA was the very first country to evoke anti monopoly laws way back in the 50's because the governments then could see the problem of having too few players in a market thus reducing the competition that the capitalist free market system is supposed to nurture & protect yet in the past 3 decades seems to be encouraging monopoly situations.
#13
B
bertsmobile1
B
bertsmobile1
And what I forgot to mention is in a case like Briggs is contemplating, what generally happens is Briggs sells the other brands so gets cashed up .
But befor they can retire debt or acquire more profitable assets the big investors step in and demand the lions share of the sales revenue to be distributed as a special distributiion , or buy back.
Thus they get the money & Briggs gets saddled with the debt.
IT is even worse down here because I can borrow every cent that I use to buy a company then transfer that debt to the company , essentially bankrupting it after I have stripped whatever asset , usually land or patients out of the company .
But befor they can retire debt or acquire more profitable assets the big investors step in and demand the lions share of the sales revenue to be distributed as a special distributiion , or buy back.
Thus they get the money & Briggs gets saddled with the debt.
IT is even worse down here because I can borrow every cent that I use to buy a company then transfer that debt to the company , essentially bankrupting it after I have stripped whatever asset , usually land or patients out of the company .
#14
tom3
tom3
I suspect ultimately the B&S name will be sold to China entirely. Much like the top line electronics manufacturers. See RCA, Zenith, Magnavox, and so many others that used to be high quality US products are now Chinese BPC (black plastic crap) equipment. See Harbor Freight selling a Quantum Briggs powered lawn mower for $99. After reading the company's announcement I give them 5 years to bankruptcy.
#15
I
ILENGINE
I
ILENGINE
Bert you are correct about Murray. They owed Briggs like $47 million and purchased them to try to recover their loses. This occurred 3 months after purchasing Simplicity group. Also read that they are going to close their Tennessee plant and move that production to the Missouri plant. And they have just brought back their production of the Vanguard engines to the USA recently.
#16
Hammermechanicman
Hammermechanicman
My wife worked for NCR in technical support for low end point of sale systems. To improve margins on the low end products they decided to lay off all the sales force and move sales to the service reps. They expected service reps to cold call customers. Turned into an absolute cluster. After a year they dropped all support for the low end stuff leaving ma and pa stores screwed. My wife got moved to the Pizza Hut help desk for techs and customers. Bad thing was the low end stuff was PC based and the pizza hut systems were Unix based. "Here's a book on Unix and a pager you are on call for support." Dip$hit store managers never replaced the UPS batteries so when the power glitched off the system would crash requiring a scrape load. "Backup? No we haven't done that for a few months. " NCR started laying off people en mass and gave others jobs they had no idea how to do. When i hired on in 1979 there were 72 service reps for my company in Dayton. When i retired there were 4. They have to pull guys from another state to service some of the stuff i worked on.Well I have been one corporate merger (buyout) when Burroughs off loaded its financial division. What a nightmare I hired into. When SRC got things under control they layoff over 300 field service techs that only 3 months earlier signed non compete contracts.
I also have seen several corporations just completely under when they started downsizing. Kinda learned to very wary when one start off loading assets.
#17
B
bertsmobile1
It is a shame that they did not consolidate the various brands under a single management , set up a single R & D department for all of them and produce some better mowers as Murray obviously had the production capacity .
As for Vanguard , Japan has been an expensive place to manufacture since the late 90's and most of what we think as Japanese has been made in the Phillapines , Indonesia, Cambodia & Vietnam .
With the rise of the Chinese engine makers there would be little to no engine sales into China and what is made in Japan can be fitted with equivalent Chinese engines , if not better and definately not cheaper .
Thus moving back to the USA where the bulk of the market is ( for the time being ) makes sense in the short term .
Convincing Joe Public that a Vanguard is not a Briggs and is worth the extra 20% is the hard bit , particulalry as they have been pushing their Briggs branded professional series engines really hard so convincing a very similar looking engine is more than just the same engine with a red blower housing will not be easy .
A lot of it comes back to the idea that the public are fools , you market is loyal & you can feed them any tosh & they will believe you .
What should be done is advertisements designed to teach the buying public what they have forgotten, the difference between throw away & quality by highlighting all of the weak points that we all see every day of the week working on the mowers .
Some jingoistic advertising to force home that the new mower you buy equals a job for some one else who can also be your customers would not go astray either .
If people see Simplicity , Murray , Snapper as people , friends & neighbours it makes a big difference to buying one of them as it makes the purchaser feel good .
Unfortunately the MBA goons that run most big companies have fallen victim their own PR and started to believe that the only important thing is the brand name and where something is made is insignificant .
Humans like to deal with humans and the more human you make a product the better it will be accepted & even appreciated en mass .
B
bertsmobile1
I thought that was the case & would not be surprised if all of the others acquisions were debt protection as well .Bert you are correct about Murray. They owed Briggs like $47 million and purchased them to try to recover their loses. This occurred 3 months after purchasing Simplicity group. Also read that they are going to close their Tennessee plant and move that production to the Missouri plant. And they have just brought back their production of the Vanguard engines to the USA recently.
It is a shame that they did not consolidate the various brands under a single management , set up a single R & D department for all of them and produce some better mowers as Murray obviously had the production capacity .
As for Vanguard , Japan has been an expensive place to manufacture since the late 90's and most of what we think as Japanese has been made in the Phillapines , Indonesia, Cambodia & Vietnam .
With the rise of the Chinese engine makers there would be little to no engine sales into China and what is made in Japan can be fitted with equivalent Chinese engines , if not better and definately not cheaper .
Thus moving back to the USA where the bulk of the market is ( for the time being ) makes sense in the short term .
Convincing Joe Public that a Vanguard is not a Briggs and is worth the extra 20% is the hard bit , particulalry as they have been pushing their Briggs branded professional series engines really hard so convincing a very similar looking engine is more than just the same engine with a red blower housing will not be easy .
A lot of it comes back to the idea that the public are fools , you market is loyal & you can feed them any tosh & they will believe you .
What should be done is advertisements designed to teach the buying public what they have forgotten, the difference between throw away & quality by highlighting all of the weak points that we all see every day of the week working on the mowers .
Some jingoistic advertising to force home that the new mower you buy equals a job for some one else who can also be your customers would not go astray either .
If people see Simplicity , Murray , Snapper as people , friends & neighbours it makes a big difference to buying one of them as it makes the purchaser feel good .
Unfortunately the MBA goons that run most big companies have fallen victim their own PR and started to believe that the only important thing is the brand name and where something is made is insignificant .
Humans like to deal with humans and the more human you make a product the better it will be accepted & even appreciated en mass .
#18
StarTech
StarTech
The very reason I will not use those robotic cashiers.
#19
B
bertsmobile1
Seen the same thing hundreds of times down here .
The problem is you get an accounting or economics or commerce graduate to do a 2 year upgrade at the sausage factory and out pops an MBA moron.
"And they all look like ticky tacky and they all think just the same " comes to mind as the best way to describe every MBA I have had dealings with .
Like Gen Y ( and latter ) who live in their phones , MBA's live in their spread sheets and eventually forget that the numbers are people and people do not react all the same .
Prime example was photoshops attempt to cash up by charging their customers rather than modifing their advertising policy .
They will be gone in a very short time . No one will ever pay a cent for what they have been getting for free and after the photo hostage , no one will ever trust them again.
It was so simple on the spread sheet money needed = number of customers x $ 498 .
The MBA's get taught that a business is a business is a business and they are all the same and the way you run them is all the same and with nothing but an MBA you know everything that you will ever need to run any business and you can run any business regardless of what it does , so Unix, Dos Basic all the same just different ways of instructing the machines to do the same thing .
I once signed up for a HF Co-axial communications package ( phone internet & TV ) when the installation was finally done, the tech could not get me on line.
He was a Windows wonk and I had a Mac / Linux network . His handbook had no instructions for Linux at all and the Mac instructions was for system 8 not the new unix based system 10 .
The only way to run a long term successful company is to bring in youths as management cadets and run them through every department & every plant then from them pick the best & brightest to go on and become managers . However it comes back to those big investors who want and instant result so they can make their KPI's this week so when new management is needed the solution is to parrachute in some one from an apparently profitable company , which will cause the other "little boxes" to buy shares which pushes the share price up so obviously you made the correct decision .
Well there was no doubt it was the correct decision because you have an MBA so every decision will be the best one .
B
bertsmobile1
My wife worked for NCR in technical support for low end point of sale systems. To improve margins on the low end products they decided to lay off all the sales force and move sales to the service reps. They expected service reps to cold call customers. Turned into an absolute cluster. After a year they dropped all support for the low end stuff leaving ma and pa stores screwed. My wife got moved to the Pizza Hut help desk for techs and customers. Bad thing was the low end stuff was PC based and the pizza hut systems were Unix based. "Here's a book on Unix and a pager you are on call for support." Dip$hit store managers never replaced the UPS batteries so when the power glitched off the system would crash requiring a scrape load. "Backup? No we haven't done that for a few months. " NCR started laying off people en mass and gave others jobs they had no idea how to do. When i hired on in 1979 there were 72 service reps for my company in Dayton. When i retired there were 4. They have to pull guys from another state to service some of the stuff i worked on.
Seen the same thing hundreds of times down here .
The problem is you get an accounting or economics or commerce graduate to do a 2 year upgrade at the sausage factory and out pops an MBA moron.
"And they all look like ticky tacky and they all think just the same " comes to mind as the best way to describe every MBA I have had dealings with .
Like Gen Y ( and latter ) who live in their phones , MBA's live in their spread sheets and eventually forget that the numbers are people and people do not react all the same .
Prime example was photoshops attempt to cash up by charging their customers rather than modifing their advertising policy .
They will be gone in a very short time . No one will ever pay a cent for what they have been getting for free and after the photo hostage , no one will ever trust them again.
It was so simple on the spread sheet money needed = number of customers x $ 498 .
The MBA's get taught that a business is a business is a business and they are all the same and the way you run them is all the same and with nothing but an MBA you know everything that you will ever need to run any business and you can run any business regardless of what it does , so Unix, Dos Basic all the same just different ways of instructing the machines to do the same thing .
I once signed up for a HF Co-axial communications package ( phone internet & TV ) when the installation was finally done, the tech could not get me on line.
He was a Windows wonk and I had a Mac / Linux network . His handbook had no instructions for Linux at all and the Mac instructions was for system 8 not the new unix based system 10 .
The only way to run a long term successful company is to bring in youths as management cadets and run them through every department & every plant then from them pick the best & brightest to go on and become managers . However it comes back to those big investors who want and instant result so they can make their KPI's this week so when new management is needed the solution is to parrachute in some one from an apparently profitable company , which will cause the other "little boxes" to buy shares which pushes the share price up so obviously you made the correct decision .
Well there was no doubt it was the correct decision because you have an MBA so every decision will be the best one .
#20
PTmowerMech
This is why I try to stay out of politics. For the simple fact that it's all a charade. Come election time, it's "my pecker is bigger than yours" for months and months. And when it's all said and done, nothing gets better. And all those voters stand around scratching their heads wondering why nothing changed.
And of course saying it must be the other party's fault.
If voting worked, they wouldn't let us do it.
BTW, my cousin who lives down under, says that Australia doesn't really manufacture much. That almost everything is imported. How true is that? Our manufacturing is what made us what it is. But with China, Mexico and other low wage countries, $8hr is an upper middle class wage. Here it's a poverty wage.
You're right about one thing in particular, about consolidated capital not being patriotic. We had companies forcing their employee's to train immigrants, so that they could shut their US operations down, and move to the country of the immigrants. And they did it, just to keep their jobs a little longer.
If Briggs goes under, I don't think it'll be anytime soon. If/when it does, I suppose we'll already be well trained on the chinese crap, like Powermore engines.
PTmowerMech
The writing is on the wall for Briggs.
They can not make engines cheap enough to compete with what is coming out of China thus their market share is only going one way & that is down.
Refinancing right now is a very good idea as money has never been so cheap they should be able to get the $ 200,000,000 at less than 2% so that will drop the existing interest payments substantially.
I do not know about the USA brands that Briggs bought but the Australian brand Victa was acquired because Victa was broke & defaulted on their payments to B & S then on top of that fitted Chinese engines and even got some of their push mowers made in China . The debt to B & S was secured against shares in Victa and under Australian company law any one who acquires 17% or more of the shares in a company is obliged to either make a full take over offer or sell down to less than 9 % . Victa at that time was being run by a hedge fund and loosing money hand over fist due to trash products so B & S would have never recovered the full debt by selling down thus it was a hostile take over .
I would imagine that the take over of Murray at least would have been along similar lines so these were more a case of debt protection rather than a long term strategic plan.
In the long term Briggs only have 2 ways to survive .
1) vertical intergration so they have a captive market for their engines which makes the finished product cheaper so possibly competative with imports and this includes buying out your suppliers so you own everything thus can opperate on a substantially reduced margins because all of the profit from every part comes back to you .
2) divest all of the mower companies and invest all of the money overseas ( China , India & South Africa ) while abandoning USA manufacture all together .
Full long term vertical intergration runs the risk of being undercut by cheaper imports on your end product . If I buy 200 or more I can get the current Murray , branded with my name for $ 450 ( US ) on the wharf out of China . And of course your customers who are now in competition with you for the end product sourcing their engines elsewhere as Toro & MTD have already done.
So it is a zero sum game.
Go broke protecting your market share by building your own whole goods or go broke because you loose so much market share for the engines it is no longer profitable to operate .
This is the end sum game of unregulated capitalism where everyone runs on unsustainably low profit margins to drive down prices and hopes to survive on a larger turn over of cheaper goods .
It is what killed Tecumseh and it is what will kill Briggs & Stratton. If they are only running on an 8% margin then they are kaput . Down here you could not even get an overdraft running on 8% .
I will imagine that they will sell the brands at a mark down price with the proviso that all of the brands continue to use Briggs engines exclusively for x number of years .
In the mean time they will invest in new plants in China and ultimately stop manufacturing in the USA completely .
Consolidated capital knows no patriotism just where to make the largest return to shareholders and the company laws force directors to chase the biggest return regardless of the ultimate effect on the company.
And when the big shareholders have sucked the last drop of blood out of Briggs they will just take their money somewhere else and suck them dry .
The company laws need a major upgrade , and that is world wide to force directors to value the longevity & security of the company not just this years dividend but considering the power of the large hedge funds , pension funds and other megga cash investors that will not happen .There are hundreds of funds that are so cashed up they could short sell Briggs ( or any other top 200 companies ) down to a 1¢ share price and not even notice it on their final return because they have been allowed to get too big
None of them care where anything is made just so long as they are getting maximum returns on their investments and if that means 30% of the population is unemployed the that just makes their investment dollars more powerful.
Now you can all call me a pinko commie leftist liberal if it makes you feel happy but I have watched helpless while our highly adversary political party system destroyed manufacturing down here & I can see it doing the same thing over there .
Companies like Sears, Lowes & particularly Wallmart are destroying your country because they have been allowed to become too big & too dominant .
And I find this quite amazing as the USA was the very first country to evoke anti monopoly laws way back in the 50's because the governments then could see the problem of having too few players in a market thus reducing the competition that the capitalist free market system is supposed to nurture & protect yet in the past 3 decades seems to be encouraging monopoly situations.
This is why I try to stay out of politics. For the simple fact that it's all a charade. Come election time, it's "my pecker is bigger than yours" for months and months. And when it's all said and done, nothing gets better. And all those voters stand around scratching their heads wondering why nothing changed.
And of course saying it must be the other party's fault.
If voting worked, they wouldn't let us do it.
BTW, my cousin who lives down under, says that Australia doesn't really manufacture much. That almost everything is imported. How true is that? Our manufacturing is what made us what it is. But with China, Mexico and other low wage countries, $8hr is an upper middle class wage. Here it's a poverty wage.
You're right about one thing in particular, about consolidated capital not being patriotic. We had companies forcing their employee's to train immigrants, so that they could shut their US operations down, and move to the country of the immigrants. And they did it, just to keep their jobs a little longer.
If Briggs goes under, I don't think it'll be anytime soon. If/when it does, I suppose we'll already be well trained on the chinese crap, like Powermore engines.
#21
Hammermechanicman
Hammermechanicman
My biggest problem with election season is trying to clean all the mud all the candidates sling out of my TV set.
#22
B
bertsmobile1
If they can not refinance they could go down as soon as the end of the financial year.
It all depends upon the financiers & the shareholder pressure groups.
As for manufacturing in OZ, it goes sort of like this.
We have 2 main parties
One is primarily financed through donations from unions called Labour party .
The other is a loose combination of every union hating group called the Liberal party ( liberal they are not )
So when Labour is in power they throw money at industries that are highly unionised & Social welfare for the bottom end of the population
When Liberals are in power they try to destroy any industry that is highly unionised to starve Labour of funding & buy votes with los of middle class welfare.
Most farmers are in the Liberals through the Country party ( farmers hate unions ) so in the old days they used to manipulate the currency exchange in order to make Aussie wool & wheat cheaper on world markets . Now days they sigh "free trade agreements " that shaft manufacturers in order , in the case of the USA - AUST one , a few thousand tons of lamb into the USA some undefined time in the future.
We did the same with the China - Aust free trade agreement.
In the middle is industry trying to modernise but one side prevents them installing robots & the other side forces them to use contract labour
Then there are the banks
If I wanted to borrow billions to take over a company, no worries . If I want to do the same to develope land that I have no title over, again the sky is the limit .
But if I am a small manufacturer needing a few thousand to get past a market slump or a couple of hundred thousand to buy new machines , no chance unless you have at least double the amount in real estate the bank can hold against the loan .
When Stens pervious distributor wen down I tried to get $2500 from my bank to stock up on the heavily discounted parts on offer to stave off Allpower going bankrupt.
I have been bankin with them for 50 years and they declined because my turn over over the past 2 years was too low & I no longer own property.
And to give you an idea, they were selling belts that retail for over $ 100 as low as $ 15 each , spark plugs for less than $ 1 .
And the final nail in the coffin is elitism & racism .
All of the politicians are university graduates .
All of the public service managers in fact just about all of the public service full stop are university graduates .
Thus they all believe that a "mature & advanced economy" is a service economy .
The fact that a service economy does not create wealth, just shifts it from one pocket to another apparently is beyond their comprehension .
But apparently all those slopey eyed people to the north are too stupid to argue a legal case or add up numbers so we will be doing all their accounting & legal services , and pigs will fly.
B
bertsmobile1
BTW, my cousin who lives down under, says that Australia doesn't really manufacture much. That almost everything is imported. How true is that? Our manufacturing is what made us what it is. But with China, Mexico and other low wage countries, $8hr is an upper middle class wage. Here it's a poverty wage.
You're right about one thing in particular, about consolidated capital not being patriotic. We had companies forcing their employee's to train immigrants, so that they could shut their US operations down, and move to the country of the immigrants. And they did it, just to keep their jobs a little longer.
If Briggs goes under, I don't think it'll be anytime soon. If/when it does, I suppose we'll already be well trained on the chinese crap, like Powermore engines.
If they can not refinance they could go down as soon as the end of the financial year.
It all depends upon the financiers & the shareholder pressure groups.
As for manufacturing in OZ, it goes sort of like this.
We have 2 main parties
One is primarily financed through donations from unions called Labour party .
The other is a loose combination of every union hating group called the Liberal party ( liberal they are not )
So when Labour is in power they throw money at industries that are highly unionised & Social welfare for the bottom end of the population
When Liberals are in power they try to destroy any industry that is highly unionised to starve Labour of funding & buy votes with los of middle class welfare.
Most farmers are in the Liberals through the Country party ( farmers hate unions ) so in the old days they used to manipulate the currency exchange in order to make Aussie wool & wheat cheaper on world markets . Now days they sigh "free trade agreements " that shaft manufacturers in order , in the case of the USA - AUST one , a few thousand tons of lamb into the USA some undefined time in the future.
We did the same with the China - Aust free trade agreement.
In the middle is industry trying to modernise but one side prevents them installing robots & the other side forces them to use contract labour
Then there are the banks
If I wanted to borrow billions to take over a company, no worries . If I want to do the same to develope land that I have no title over, again the sky is the limit .
But if I am a small manufacturer needing a few thousand to get past a market slump or a couple of hundred thousand to buy new machines , no chance unless you have at least double the amount in real estate the bank can hold against the loan .
When Stens pervious distributor wen down I tried to get $2500 from my bank to stock up on the heavily discounted parts on offer to stave off Allpower going bankrupt.
I have been bankin with them for 50 years and they declined because my turn over over the past 2 years was too low & I no longer own property.
And to give you an idea, they were selling belts that retail for over $ 100 as low as $ 15 each , spark plugs for less than $ 1 .
And the final nail in the coffin is elitism & racism .
All of the politicians are university graduates .
All of the public service managers in fact just about all of the public service full stop are university graduates .
Thus they all believe that a "mature & advanced economy" is a service economy .
The fact that a service economy does not create wealth, just shifts it from one pocket to another apparently is beyond their comprehension .
But apparently all those slopey eyed people to the north are too stupid to argue a legal case or add up numbers so we will be doing all their accounting & legal services , and pigs will fly.
#23
StarTech
StarTech
The only problem is that we still got to deal with the mess if it happens for years. Here I am still dealing with the companies that failed over 10 yrs ago. Matter of fact I just got in Husqvarna rider with a Peerless hydro LT2000 unit that needs disassembly and the darn jig is NLA so I got try to make one from scratch without the plans. What wrong is a simple fix but the jig is needed to realign unit on reassembly.
#24
StarTech
StarTech
I just use the mud to fill in holes in my yard...My biggest problem with election season is trying to clean all the mud all the candidates sling out of my TV set.
#25
Hammermechanicman
Hammermechanicman
I am amazed at how many experts don't realize that foreign trade is what drives any economy. I make something, i sell it for a profit to another country, my country's economy grows. Been that way since there has been money. If the land of OZ doesn't want manufacturing and export then good luck with politicians and their programs. It drives everthing down. Can't tax bankruput companies or ones that leave the country.
#26
PTmowerMech
Trading with other countries is fine and dandy. You're right, it does help a lot. It creates a ton of logistics jobs. Ports, warehouse, trucking etc etc etc
Problem is, those countries that have near slave labor wages, compared to our own, we're exporting more jobs than goods.
Politicians keep saying it's the USA corporate tax and regulations that drive companies to outsource jobs.
And that's just BS. It's overhead. Period. End of story.
Take a American vs a Mexican company with 500 employee's, and the overhead it costs each one.
500 Americans @ say $17hr, 40hr a week. Just the wages (no overtime, no insurance, nothing but wages) It's $340,000 per week. Or $17,680,000 per year.
500 Mexicans, who's generously making $2hr (Minimum wage in MX is $5 per DAY (not hour)) is $40,000 per week or $2,080,000 per year. That's about $15.5 million per year in savings. And even more when you throw in all the American benefits like health insurance, SS matching, sick pay, 401K matching etc etc etc etc.. It's probably about $20,000,000
But, if an American company can't outsource, it take a beating from the Chinese or MX companies who import their products and sell it for just a little less than an American. If there was one currency for all the world, jobs would go where the best workers are. Not the cheapest.
This is something that no politician can address, because it would expose the near slave labor that's going on in MX, that drives them across our borders. And more importantly, those lobbyist who pay the MX and our own politicians to keep MX a huge slave labor country.
What's the old saying? "Follow the money."
PTmowerMech
I am amazed at how many experts don't realize that foreign trade is what drives any economy. I make something, i sell it for a profit to another country, my country's economy grows. Been that way since there has been money. If the land of OZ doesn't want manufacturing and export then good luck with politicians and their programs. It drives everthing down. Can't tax bankruput companies or ones that leave the country.
Trading with other countries is fine and dandy. You're right, it does help a lot. It creates a ton of logistics jobs. Ports, warehouse, trucking etc etc etc
Problem is, those countries that have near slave labor wages, compared to our own, we're exporting more jobs than goods.
Politicians keep saying it's the USA corporate tax and regulations that drive companies to outsource jobs.
And that's just BS. It's overhead. Period. End of story.
Take a American vs a Mexican company with 500 employee's, and the overhead it costs each one.
500 Americans @ say $17hr, 40hr a week. Just the wages (no overtime, no insurance, nothing but wages) It's $340,000 per week. Or $17,680,000 per year.
500 Mexicans, who's generously making $2hr (Minimum wage in MX is $5 per DAY (not hour)) is $40,000 per week or $2,080,000 per year. That's about $15.5 million per year in savings. And even more when you throw in all the American benefits like health insurance, SS matching, sick pay, 401K matching etc etc etc etc.. It's probably about $20,000,000
But, if an American company can't outsource, it take a beating from the Chinese or MX companies who import their products and sell it for just a little less than an American. If there was one currency for all the world, jobs would go where the best workers are. Not the cheapest.
This is something that no politician can address, because it would expose the near slave labor that's going on in MX, that drives them across our borders. And more importantly, those lobbyist who pay the MX and our own politicians to keep MX a huge slave labor country.
What's the old saying? "Follow the money."
#27
T
Tinkerer200
T
Tinkerer200
StarTech - " even had one engine's heads to go NLA then to a pair and finally when a I got the one head that I was needing it was double in price."
Seems I offered you a way to salvage heads in another Thread which you apparently were not interested in.
Walt Conner
Seems I offered you a way to salvage heads in another Thread which you apparently were not interested in.
Walt Conner
#28
tom3
tom3
Plus these foreign countries have no EPA or OSHA or child labor laws, anything goes with those factories. Not to mention that China has been locking down raw material sources for the last 20 years or so.
#29
StarTech
StarTech
Walt you can't save one that has a busted valve seat that I know of; unless, you know of Briggs part numbers for the valve seats use in the OHV heads. I mean there was nothing left of the seat on that head I needed to replace. As the head when to a pair for $145 then I got one for $145. PN 84001919StarTech - " even had one engine's heads to go NLA then to a pair and finally when a I got the one head that I was needing it was double in price."
Seems I offered you a way to salvage heads in another Thread which you apparently were not interested in.
Walt Conner
#30
B
bertsmobile1
What you are talking about is exploiting third world countries by first world countries in order to increase the wealth in the first world economy.
It is all about corperate greed driven by the consolidated capital model of companies to the advantage of the already rich in order to make their wealth increase faster and any body elses wealth .
If Americans are earing $17/hr then they can AFFORD to pay $ 5000 minimum price for a ride on mower because internal economics balance out.
However from day one we are taught to be greedy selfish and even worse wanton consummers so we want a 72" TV and we are not content with one for the lounge, we want one for the outdoor space, and another for every bedroom teaching our children to be greedy , selfish & intollerant to the desires of others .
We want a big house to live in plus a cabin in the mountains for fishing and a summer house by the beach plus an overseas holiday at least every second year .
However if we pay a fair & reasonable LOCAL price we can only get about 1/3 of that which is still twice what we actually need .
Even worse still is the wealthier we get the more reluctant we are to paying a fair price for anything and in particular taxes to run the country.
You won't find wage earners hiding money in secret off shore bank so avoid paying tax and to a person all of secret bank account holders could afford to pay 10 times the tax they are STEALING from the rest of the hard working people in their own country . Even better is when we pay what we feel is a lot of tax, then we hold the government to account for how they spend OUR money.
This is why we desperately need changes to company & tax laws.
Firstly the Tobin tax on currency transfers so that every time President Trump sends a lazy billion to his secret off shore bank account he pays $ 1000 in tax . When he shifts that cash to buy a Russian hotel chain from his mate Putin he pays another 0.001% in tax & all that collected tax goes to poverty relief in 3rd world countries .
The other big changes needed is to tax companies on their total turnover , not the 20% of the real profits that they declare to pay tax on.
This tax rate can & should be adjusted according to the type of business so farmers might pay 0.1% and factories might pay 0.15% while importers would pay 1 % & retailers 2 % or some thing along those lines so government could direct capital to where it does the most good for the country . This is how Westfield charge rent for their shopping centers ( malls to some ) space & how a tiny company became the largest retail space manager on the planet.
Next all bonuses paid to managements and in particular directors must be in 10 year redeamable paper so if they make big profits by running the business into the ground and it is not there in 10 years time neither is their bonuses which typically are big multiples of their actual salary .
Flat rate tax on every cent paid to an individual regardless of how it is paid . This kills the incentive to hide income to avoid going into a higher tax bracket and the rate should be around 30% which is what a lot of religions demand from their followers . Then the government can do the adjustments for total income via welfare so the bottom 1/3 are on an effective 0% tax rate because they are what really drives the economy as they spend every cent they get the day they get it . Government grants to schools per child & to municipal authorities for capital projects or even worse , making basic medical services free as it is in most 1st world countries in the world apart from the USA ,etc etc etc .
B
bertsmobile1
Trading with other countries is fine and dandy. You're right, it does help a lot. It creates a ton of logistics jobs. Ports, warehouse, trucking etc etc etc
Problem is, those countries that have near slave labor wages, compared to our own, we're exporting more jobs than goods.
Politicians keep saying it's the USA corporate tax and regulations that drive companies to outsource jobs.
And that's just BS. It's overhead. Period. End of story.
Take a American vs a Mexican company with 500 employee's, and the overhead it costs each one.
500 Americans @ say $17hr, 40hr a week. Just the wages (no overtime, no insurance, nothing but wages) It's $340,000 per week. Or $17,680,000 per year.
500 Mexicans, who's generously making $2hr (Minimum wage in MX is $5 per DAY (not hour)) is $40,000 per week or $2,080,000 per year. That's about $15.5 million per year in savings. And even more when you throw in all the American benefits like health insurance, SS matching, sick pay, 401K matching etc etc etc etc.. It's probably about $20,000,000
But, if an American company can't outsource, it take a beating from the Chinese or MX companies who import their products and sell it for just a little less than an American. If there was one currency for all the world, jobs would go where the best workers are. Not the cheapest.
This is something that no politician can address, because it would expose the near slave labor that's going on in MX, that drives them across our borders. And more importantly, those lobbyist who pay the MX and our own politicians to keep MX a huge slave labor country.
What's the old saying? "Follow the money."
What you are talking about is exploiting third world countries by first world countries in order to increase the wealth in the first world economy.
It is all about corperate greed driven by the consolidated capital model of companies to the advantage of the already rich in order to make their wealth increase faster and any body elses wealth .
If Americans are earing $17/hr then they can AFFORD to pay $ 5000 minimum price for a ride on mower because internal economics balance out.
However from day one we are taught to be greedy selfish and even worse wanton consummers so we want a 72" TV and we are not content with one for the lounge, we want one for the outdoor space, and another for every bedroom teaching our children to be greedy , selfish & intollerant to the desires of others .
We want a big house to live in plus a cabin in the mountains for fishing and a summer house by the beach plus an overseas holiday at least every second year .
However if we pay a fair & reasonable LOCAL price we can only get about 1/3 of that which is still twice what we actually need .
Even worse still is the wealthier we get the more reluctant we are to paying a fair price for anything and in particular taxes to run the country.
You won't find wage earners hiding money in secret off shore bank so avoid paying tax and to a person all of secret bank account holders could afford to pay 10 times the tax they are STEALING from the rest of the hard working people in their own country . Even better is when we pay what we feel is a lot of tax, then we hold the government to account for how they spend OUR money.
This is why we desperately need changes to company & tax laws.
Firstly the Tobin tax on currency transfers so that every time President Trump sends a lazy billion to his secret off shore bank account he pays $ 1000 in tax . When he shifts that cash to buy a Russian hotel chain from his mate Putin he pays another 0.001% in tax & all that collected tax goes to poverty relief in 3rd world countries .
The other big changes needed is to tax companies on their total turnover , not the 20% of the real profits that they declare to pay tax on.
This tax rate can & should be adjusted according to the type of business so farmers might pay 0.1% and factories might pay 0.15% while importers would pay 1 % & retailers 2 % or some thing along those lines so government could direct capital to where it does the most good for the country . This is how Westfield charge rent for their shopping centers ( malls to some ) space & how a tiny company became the largest retail space manager on the planet.
Next all bonuses paid to managements and in particular directors must be in 10 year redeamable paper so if they make big profits by running the business into the ground and it is not there in 10 years time neither is their bonuses which typically are big multiples of their actual salary .
Flat rate tax on every cent paid to an individual regardless of how it is paid . This kills the incentive to hide income to avoid going into a higher tax bracket and the rate should be around 30% which is what a lot of religions demand from their followers . Then the government can do the adjustments for total income via welfare so the bottom 1/3 are on an effective 0% tax rate because they are what really drives the economy as they spend every cent they get the day they get it . Government grants to schools per child & to municipal authorities for capital projects or even worse , making basic medical services free as it is in most 1st world countries in the world apart from the USA ,etc etc etc .
#31
StarTech
StarTech
Send the info to the administrator of PPETEN via a PM.StarTech - " even had one engine's heads to go NLA then to a pair and finally when a I got the one head that I was needing it was double in price."
Seems I offered you a way to salvage heads in another Thread which you apparently were not interested in.
Walt Conner