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Offline Danlake  
#1 Posted : 22 August 2017 20:22:30(UTC)
Danlake

New Zealand   
Joined: 03/08/2011(UTC)
Posts: 1,571
Looks like Roco and Co in financial troubles and looking for new owner/ investors...

This is sad news as I, among many other, have come very found of their products.

Maybe someone can translate:

http://www.nordbayern.de...er-fleischmann-1.6528449

Let's hope for the bestSad

Brgds Lasse
Digital 11m2 layout / C (M&K) tracks / Era IV / CS3 60226 / Train Controller Gold 9 with 4D sound. Mainly Danish and German Locomotives.
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Offline Collector  
#2 Posted : 22 August 2017 22:09:42(UTC)
Collector


Joined: 17/08/2016(UTC)
Posts: 147
Location: Europe
It seems like KPMG is looking for a buyer for the holding company which owns Roco and Fleischmann.

Apparently the turnover is stagnating at a bit less than 50 million per year which results in big losses.

It seems/is alleged that the bank behind it is losing patience and KPMG is not being very picky in the search for a buyer.

Their strategy seems to be much like sending spam email ....


DRG/DB/SBB Epoche II/III/IV
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Offline steventrain  
#3 Posted : 22 August 2017 22:37:45(UTC)
steventrain

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Joined: 21/10/2004(UTC)
Posts: 31,601
Location: United Kingdom
I think it file for insolvency. - http://www.spiegel.de/fo...ent-thread-334622-3.html
Large Marklinist 3- Rails Layout with CS2/MS2/Boosters/C-track/favorites Electric class E03/BR103, E18/E118, E94, Crocodiles/Steam BR01, BR03, BR05, BR23, BR44, BR50, Big Boy.
Offline Collector  
#4 Posted : 23 August 2017 02:54:03(UTC)
Collector


Joined: 17/08/2016(UTC)
Posts: 147
Location: Europe
Originally Posted by: steventrain Go to Quoted Post
I think it file for insolvency. - http://www.spiegel.de/fo...ent-thread-334622-3.html


The article from the link is from 2 years ago. That was Fleischmann filing back then. I think they then ended up in the same holding company that also owns Roco.
DRG/DB/SBB Epoche II/III/IV
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Offline NS1200  
#5 Posted : 23 August 2017 03:30:42(UTC)
NS1200

Netherlands   
Joined: 10/08/2009(UTC)
Posts: 3,443
Once companies fall into the claws of banks or accountants ("bean counters") the blood is being sucked out of it.
I have experienced this myself in shipping,not a branch which is making a lot of profit.
The good old shipowners were replaced by bankmanagers trying to run a shipping company,bound to fail.
Their only purpose by profession is to try and sell the remains of the assets to the highest bidder.
Who remembers Nedlloyd Lines,once the biggest shippingcompany in The Netherlands,well known the world over,having a similar size like Hapag lloyd from Germany?
Well,this company i started working for in 1974 was sold to foreign interests,loyal people being sacked by the hundreds.
My sympathy to the people working for Fleischmann and Roco.
Have more than you show,speak less than you know (Shakespeare).
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Offline TEEWolf  
#6 Posted : 23 August 2017 04:45:17(UTC)
TEEWolf


Joined: 01/06/2016(UTC)
Posts: 2,465
In addition to collectors post #2.

This is the company on sale:

http://www.modelleisenba...g.com/de/home/index.html

The company owns Fleischmann and Roco. In the German paper "Manager-Magazin" is an article (they generated the original news about the sale of Fleischman and Roco)

http://www.manager-magaz...-verkauft-a-1163756.html

about the unusual manner of offering this company as for sale. But the article includes no good news. The sales decreasees in 2015 to 49,5 Mio €, but the loss exploded to 15 Mio €. That is 30% of sales, really desastrous. That shall be the reason they are looking for new investors.

But in this article is also mentioned that Maerklin had in 2015/16 (these are the last published financial data from Maerklin, because their business year is always ending March 31st. So the figueres from March 31st 2017 are not yet published, because they have 6 months time to do it)
again a decrease in sales to 94,2 Mio € and also a decrease in profit to 3,3 Mio €. This is for me also critical, because Maerklin was planning to do more sales (up to a 110 Mio € per year) since the Siebers had bought Maerklin in 2013. Instaed of growing sales since then they have decreasing sales to 94,2 Mio €. The good news is, that they still doing a profit.

This theme is also discussed very intensive in the Stummi community and they refered to Hornsby too. And Hornsby has also bad financial data published. Also sales are declining and they did an operating loss of 9.2 m pounds. For more details see here (in English)

Hornsby

It seems that the total market for MRR is not in a good and profitable condition, except Maerklin. But they have some quality problems. Overall, no good news at all.




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Offline GlennM  
#7 Posted : 23 August 2017 12:52:27(UTC)
GlennM

United Kingdom   
Joined: 09/05/2011(UTC)
Posts: 2,877
Location: Somewhere, But Nowhere Near Manchester, England
Originally Posted by: NS1200 Go to Quoted Post
Once companies fall into the claws of banks or accountants ("bean counters") the blood is being sucked out of it.
I have experienced this myself in shipping,not a branch which is making a lot of profit.
The good old shipowners were replaced by bankmanagers trying to run a shipping company,bound to fail.
Their only purpose by profession is to try and sell the remains of the assets to the highest bidder.
Who remembers Nedlloyd Lines,once the biggest shippingcompany in The Netherlands,well known the world over,having a similar size like Hapag lloyd from Germany?
Well,this company i started working for in 1974 was sold to foreign interests,loyal people being sacked by the hundreds.
My sympathy to the people working for Fleischmann and Roco.


Bank Managers should stick to what they know managing Banks. In the UK they cannot even manage that very well.
Don't look back, your not heading that way.
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Offline baggio  
#8 Posted : 23 August 2017 13:47:03(UTC)
baggio

Canada   
Joined: 21/09/2012(UTC)
Posts: 1,729
Location: Toronto
If it helps, here is a translation of the article by Chromium - picture not included:

Wanted: buyer for model railway manufacturer Fleischmann
KPMG examined prospects for the traditional brands Fleischmann and Roco - 08/22/2017 05:57

NUREMBERG - The model train industry threatens the next blow to the neck: the model railroad holding company is for sale.

The brand Fleischmann - here a train from the national railway time - enjoys an excellent reputation among model railway fans. But the manufacturer, the model railway holding company, is for sale.
The Fleischmann brand - here a train from the provincial railroad period - enjoys an excellent reputation among model train fans. But the manufacturer, the model railway holding company, is for sale. © Photo: Harald Sippel
Corresponding information from the manager magazine confirmed several insiders against our editorial department. The company, which is based in the suburb of Bergheim in the Salzburg region, is owned by the traditional Frankish model railway manufacturer Fleischmann, and the Austrian brand Roco. To date, in Heilsbronn near Nuremberg a factory has survived on a now much too large terrain with 23 full-time jobs, in which rails are manufactured among other things.

Officially citable statements are hardly to be found in the sector, which is regarded as very secretive. According to the insiders, however, the company consulting KPMG has been searching for buyers for the holding company for months - and this is obviously little voter. Thus, the approximately 50-page tender was partly simply sent to the mail address of a possible prospective customer named in the imprint, in case of doubt, therefore, info @ [company name] .de

Patience at the end?

- Display -

KPMG did not want to comment on this issue, nor was there any comment from the model railway company. In the industry, it is an open secret that Raiffeisen Salzburg has been a major contributor to the company for years. The bank is said to have acted on the holding also in the debt service several times already. Nevertheless, the business is stagnating at just under EUR 50 million in annual turnover, which means high losses. Well, the insiders said, the patience of the Raiffeisen Salzburg could be over.

In the KPMG tender, prospective purchasers will be expected to have revenues of EUR 53.1 million for 2019 and a return to the profit zone from 2018 onwards. At the same time, the holding is apparently not least due to significant savings in operating and personnel costs. Profit from this could be a brand new plant in Vietnam. The consequences for the European sites are uncertain.

Links to the topic Further news from the "Economy"
From the environment of the branch primes Märklin it was said, for antitrust reasons for the rescue of the number two in the market is no question. Nevertheless, it was hoped that Roco / Fleischmann would survive, so that the already shrinking overall market would not be further weakened. The danger also worries Martin Knaden, chief editor of the specialist magazine Miba: "I see no one who could fill the gap immediately in the event of a failure of these brands." The market would take years to recover from such a blow. He sincerely hoped that an investor-driven investor would be found. "The fact that the search is apparently done almost by spam mail is a very bad sign."

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Offline Collector  
#9 Posted : 23 August 2017 20:45:53(UTC)
Collector


Joined: 17/08/2016(UTC)
Posts: 147
Location: Europe
Originally Posted by: TEEWolf Go to Quoted Post
In addition to collectors post #2.


http://www.manager-magaz...-verkauft-a-1163756.html

about the unusual manner of offering this company as for sale. But the article includes no good news. The sales decreasees in 2015 to 49,5 Mio €, but the loss exploded to 15 Mio €. That is 30% of sales, really desastrous. That shall be the reason they are looking for new investors.



Before Marklin went bankrupt they paid something like 10 million "consulting" fees in a single year and then went bust.

If you make a 15 MILLION loss on selling 49.5 Million you REALLY need to ask what is going on. Something VERY smelly or VERY stupid going on.

Accounting tricks? Inventory went up in smoke without being insured (but that we would have heard in the news)?



DRG/DB/SBB Epoche II/III/IV
Offline Minok  
#10 Posted : 23 August 2017 22:27:09(UTC)
Minok

United States   
Joined: 15/10/2006(UTC)
Posts: 2,310
Location: Washington, Pacific Northwest
So the current owners of Roco/Fleischman, Modelleisenbahn-Holding, want to sell (for reasons not clarified) and hired KPMG to find a buyer, and KPMG is just doing a broad sweep of any and all interested parties via catch all email contacts at this point (since I would assume they have exhausted the direct contacts they have for many companies).

Märklin, as they themselves mentioned, cannot be considered as a buyer due to the market sustainability (monopoly) reasons. (#1 cannot buy out #2, though not sure Märklin would want to).

If a company is shareholder owned, its driven by the demands for return by the shareholders.
If a company is investment company owned, its driven by the return/exit strategy of the single investment company.
Only if a company is privately held by the operators of the company is there really a chance that the company can operate on a low rate of return for the sake of existing to serve the market.

Shareholders and investment companies don't much care one way or the other about the existence of a company, only that it generates a rate of return that exceeds the current cost of capital.
Toys of tin and wood rule!
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Offline Jabez  
#11 Posted : 24 August 2017 01:44:22(UTC)
Jabez

Belgium   
Joined: 30/08/2016(UTC)
Posts: 636
Location: Brussels
It's often said, and with reason, that model railways is now an old-man's hobby and youngsters are not getting into it in the numbers they once did. But the survival of the model manufacturers themselves often seems more precarious than that of the ageing fan base.
Perhaps the two issues are linked.
Jabez
I heard that lonesome whistle blow. Hank Williams
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Offline steventrain  
#12 Posted : 29 August 2017 18:09:56(UTC)
steventrain

United Kingdom   
Joined: 21/10/2004(UTC)
Posts: 31,601
Location: United Kingdom
Fleischmann put up for sale week ago.

http://www.br.de/nachric...n-sucht-kaeufer-100.html
Large Marklinist 3- Rails Layout with CS2/MS2/Boosters/C-track/favorites Electric class E03/BR103, E18/E118, E94, Crocodiles/Steam BR01, BR03, BR05, BR23, BR44, BR50, Big Boy.
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Offline baggio  
#13 Posted : 29 August 2017 18:34:35(UTC)
baggio

Canada   
Joined: 21/09/2012(UTC)
Posts: 1,729
Location: Toronto
Chromium translation (pictures not included):

Fleischmann is for sale
The traditional Franconian model railway manufacturer Fleischmann is for sale. There are interested parties, confirms the model railroad holding, to which Fleischmann belongs. But so far no buyer has yet found.

By: Franz Engeser, Frank Staudenmayer
Last update: 22.08.2017 | Photo credit

Model railway of Fleischmann Image: Daniel Karmann, picture-alliance / dpa

A total sale is however only one of many possibilities. "We are talking about how we can cooperate more closely with partners," says a press release from the Austrian Modelleisenbahn Holding, which includes Fleischmann and Roco. The talks are fruitful, but final results are not yet available.

Lengthy partner search
The Fleischmann factory in Heilsbronn Picture: BR-Studio Franken / Bernd Förster
The Fleischmann factory in Heilsbronn

The workforce in Heilsbronn is informed about the situation. A partner had already been looking for partners for a three-quarters of a year, said a works councilor to Bayerischer Rundfunk. There were already offers, but these were obviously not interesting for the parent company.

Holding wants to write again black numbers
After years of loss, the Modelleisenbahn Holding 2018 wants to reach the profit zone again. In the coming year, the effect of the new location in Vietnam will be effective for the first time, according to the holding company. Since summer 2015, sales have risen by 12 percent.

Keywords: Modelleisenbahn Holding

The Austrian Modelleisenbahn Holding based in Bergtheim near Salzburg is the number two in the European business for model railways (according to Märklin). It employs 750 people at plants in Germany, Austria, Romania, Slovakia and Vietnam. In 2016 the company generated sales of 49 million euros.

Keywords: Fleischmann
Model of the heaviest tender locomotive of the German Federal Railroad of the series BR 95 in the scale of HO model railway of Fleischmann Image: picture-alliance / dpa

The original Nuremberg company has been producing toys for 130 years. At the beginning, this was a piece of metal toy, and in the 1950s, model railways were added to the range, which Fleischmann finally concentrated on.

The company changed the owner in 2008, the owner family separated from the business. The new owner moved the headquarters from Nuremberg to Heilsbronn, where railways are still being produced by a small team. After several changes of ownership and a bankruptcy in 2015, Fleischmann belongs to the Österreichische Modelleisenbahn Holding.
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Offline Minok  
#14 Posted : 29 August 2017 19:39:39(UTC)
Minok

United States   
Joined: 15/10/2006(UTC)
Posts: 2,310
Location: Washington, Pacific Northwest
Yep, its been an ongoing search for a buyer for some time. The current ownership are polishing up the operations to look great starting in 2018 to attract buyers, but if that were really true one wonders why the owners (Modelleisenbahn Holding) would be selling just as they are turning the ship around.. .my guess they don't have a lot of confidence in things staying in the black. Whether the offshore production will help is highly questionable, since we know from Märklins (and other companies) that offshoring production requires a very strong and constant oversight otherwise the quality will tank. Since the consulting company has effectively been mass-mailing every possible company including sending emails to generic corporate contact emails like info@<companyname>.com, it looks like it will be hard to find a buyer that cares about the hobby itself. May end up with a buyer that only wants to have the parts. Or the asking price by the holding company/owners is unrealistically high. I would think someone in the general field (existing big players like Märklin are not an option due to market competition laws) would be a possible buyer, but the price has to be low enough.
Toys of tin and wood rule!
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Offline baggio  
#15 Posted : 29 August 2017 19:42:29(UTC)
baggio

Canada   
Joined: 21/09/2012(UTC)
Posts: 1,729
Location: Toronto
Originally Posted by: Minok Go to Quoted Post
May end up with a buyer that only wants to have the parts


Unfortunately, that would not be a real buyer, more like a trustee in bankruptcy. Sad
Offline Francois29  
#16 Posted : 12 October 2017 18:21:13(UTC)
Francois29

France   
Joined: 01/05/2014(UTC)
Posts: 64
Location: BRITTANY
And now Gützold will be bankrupt at the end of October :
http://www.h0-modellbahn...GmbH-in-Liquidation.html
Offline TEEWolf  
#17 Posted : 12 October 2017 20:25:54(UTC)
TEEWolf


Joined: 01/06/2016(UTC)
Posts: 2,465
Originally Posted by: Francois29 Go to Quoted Post
And now Gützold will be bankrupt at the end of October :
http://www.h0-modellbahn...GmbH-in-Liquidation.html


Just a very short research shows, it is much more complicated as it was looking on a first sight. Finally and overall I have to say, that it is not a bankrupt to the end of October 2017. It is a liquidation of the "Gützold Modellbau GmbH". The insolvency for this company was already opened December 2nd, 2014.

http://www.firmeninfos.b...11c7f-531+IN+172814.html

But this is for minor interest. I guess, it is more important for all railroder, that the "fischer-modell GmbH" has taken over the name (and whatever else) "Gützold" before and is still producing under this name "Gützold" railroad models.

http://www.guetzold.de/index.php?article_id=1

As you can read by their imprint (Impressum), the company is the "fischer-modell GmbH". Using the name "Gützold" for the internet, their homepage and obviously for their models sold.

On this homepage they write under the topic "Firmenhistorie" (company history) "since 2013" they do it.

http://www.guetzold.de/index.php?article_id=2

Yes, since April 1 st, 2013 (!!! already) the fischer-modell GmbH are building models ( I guess they mean only railroad models) in Zwickau (Saxonia, Germany) under the name "Gützold".

This already for over 4 years! If you had bought a Gützold loco in the passed 4 years, it was a "Gützold - c/o fischer-modell GmbH". But is it important, if you like the model and very pleased by it?

Quite the opposite, it tells you, buying a Gützold you buy a loco from an existing and living company. So you keep and get all the support by the producer, which you need now and in the future. Enjoy your Gützold loco while running it over your layout.BigGrin

Offline Minok  
#18 Posted : 12 October 2017 21:24:48(UTC)
Minok

United States   
Joined: 15/10/2006(UTC)
Posts: 2,310
Location: Washington, Pacific Northwest
I think the points of interest are:

1) The workers in Zwickau were all terminated as of the end of Oct 2017 and will presumably reapply for jobs under the new company if there are some - since Fischer has to restaff its Zwickau operations
2) Any outstanding orders to the Gützold brand/company were cancelled.
3) New price lists came out with increased prices - and any cancelled orders and new orders must be placed under this new price list.
Toys of tin and wood rule!
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Offline Francois29  
#19 Posted : 12 October 2017 21:38:56(UTC)
Francois29

France   
Joined: 01/05/2014(UTC)
Posts: 64
Location: BRITTANY
Many Thx TEEWolf for this clear explanation.
Btw, any update on Roco Fleischmann ?
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