
U.S. gunmaker Remington files for bankruptcy - oblib
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-remington-bankruptcy/u-s-gunmaker-remington-files-for-bankruptcy-idUSKBN1H204F
======
mtmail
It's a restructuring mostly

"This has been in the works for a while and nobody is really concerned about
it. They're still selling guns, building guns, and planning for the future.
This was more of a they were behind on their financial payments because of
their last buyout and such. When the industry took a downturn they were hit
with it. So they need to restructure to be able to pay off debts. They're not
going out of business, and they won't be likely to go out of business any time
soon, their name is still hugely valuable and they still sell some of the most
popular guns on the market (and their quality across the board seems to be
getting better, especially their Marlin line). Source: Person in the industry
(though not at Remington)"

[https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/875z4t/remington_one_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/875z4t/remington_one_of_americas_oldest_gun_makers_files/dwak8kz/)

[edit: changed the quoting for readability on mobile]

~~~
Twirrim
From [https://qz.com/1219495/remingtons-ar-15-the-financial-
histor...](https://qz.com/1219495/remingtons-ar-15-the-financial-history-of-
stephen-feinbergs-cerberus-capital/)

"It was still a profitable company, except that its owners had loaded it up
with debt in typical private-equity style to divert profits to themselves. In
the first nine months of 2016, the company could pay $45 million in interest
to its creditors and still walk away with a $19 million profit. In the same
period in 2017, Feinberg and the company’s remaining investors faced a $60
million loss"

So this just appears to be another example of a private equity company buying
up and saddling a profitable business with unsustainable debt, much like what
happened with Toys'R'Us et al. The same pattern we've been seeing for a while.

~~~
bhouston
Debt holders should be suing the private equity people for their losses.
Otherwise it is a loophole that is easily abused.

~~~
kss238
The debtholders entered a voluntary contract. They knew the risks. No one
forces them to invest into Remington.

~~~
DennisP
Shareholders can sue if the company's management clearly acts against the
shareholders' best interest. For example, some shareholders are suing Facebook
over the data misuse issue, since it's impacting the stock price:
[https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/23/facebook-hit-with-
sharehol...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/23/facebook-hit-with-shareholder-
lawsuits-over-data-misuse-crisis/)

~~~
kss238
Shareholders aren't debtholders.

------
ZorroToaster
I don't see why they bother implying the recent protests have had or will have
an effect on Remington. Bankruptcy has been a long time coming due to garbage
management and deteriorating quality. The timing is just coincidental and
makes no material difference.

~~~
ad_hominem
The mask really slips when they mention Fred Meyer (the grocery chain)'s PR
about no longer selling guns, as if that has any measurable effect on the gun
economy

~~~
ksenzee
Calling Fred Meyer a grocery chain is like calling Walmart a grocery chain.
They're essentially a department store with a decent-sized grocery department.

~~~
stormthebeach
It depends on where you are. The AZ version - Fry's - is almost 100% grocery.
Whereas other parts of the country I've seen their stores be close to 50/50

------
jboggan
Terrible quality control and terrible product development is responsible for
this. Principles of mass manufacturing reliable firearms were figured out in
the early 20th century and Remington as a company seems to have forgotten how
to do this in the last 20 years. The launch of the R51 pistol was a textbook
disaster in terms of product quality and public messaging and pretty
emblematic of the overall problems the management had.

~~~
Pxtl
So what does "bad quality" look like in a firearm? Because a "quality" problem
in a device that ignite an explosive propellant in the palm of your hand and
propels a piece of metal at deliberately lethal velocities sounds really bad.

~~~
mtreis86
From [http://www.gunsholstersandgear.com/2015/09/18/more-delays-
re...](http://www.gunsholstersandgear.com/2015/09/18/more-delays-
remington-r51/)

"Hot gasses escaping the chamber were essentially flame cutting the top of my
hand"

"Problems keeping the magazine in the gun"

"The slide action was very rough, and the rear sight was loose in the
dovetail"

"An Idaho man was accidentally shot while loading his R51 pistol. According to
court documents, the man did not press the trigger, nor did he depress the
grip safety. Yet, the gun allegedly fired and struck him in the abdomen when
he inserted a magazine."

From [http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/02/foghorn/gun-
review-...](http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/02/foghorn/gun-review-
remington-r51/)

"The left side of the R51’s slide rail contacted my hand when the gun cycles"

"The R51’s trigger had no perceptible reset"

"Disassembling Remington’s carry piece is almost as challenging as changing an
M1 Carbine’s extractor... When you re-assemble the R51 you must slip a small
tab on the slide stop of the gun underneath this little spring. You must
insert it perfectly parallel to the slide. If you tilt the slide stop upwards
by as little as a 1/16th of an inch, if it rides above the spring, the gun
will malfunction" (Note, they did fix this in the second version of the r51)

"Even when the gun is absolutely 100% assembled correctly, it still fails to
fire, fires out of battery, and fails to feed with alarming regularity"

~~~
Pxtl
Ow. I'm assuming that a crapload of lawsuits contributed to this
restructuring.

------
jaquetheduck
I doubt this is really due to the protests. Remington's quality has been
dropping for years. Their most popular model, the 870, used to be one of the
most reliable and affordable shotguns out there, but now it is one of the
worst ones you can buy. It seems just a coincidence that this is happening at
such a high point of the gun control movement.

------
logfromblammo
Seems like the gun protests are more a convenient excuse than anything else.

> _$950 million debtload... Cerberus Capital Management LP, the private equity
> firm that controls Remington, will lose ownership in the bankruptcy._

This looks like another case of a leveraged buyout destroying a business.

 _Edit follows:_

Cutting the quality is straight out of the leveraged buyout playbook.

Buy the brand, cash out any public goodwill it has remaining, then sell off
the company before the debt payments catch up. In this instance, they couldn't
sell the company fast enough, partly because a Remington Bushmaster was used
to murder children at Sandy Hook.

If a private equity company buys your favorite brand, buy up some of the
warehoused product as quickly as you can, then just forget about it.
Otherwise, it's like watching someone slowly succumb to cancer.

Sure, sometimes that _isn 't_ the play, and the company actually improves
post-buyout, but if you're talking about a nationally recognized brand, the
odds are that someone is going to burn the brand to fuel their personal money
engine, and then dump the husk of the company on the side of a lonely country
road.

~~~
piyh
Also from what I've heard their quality had taken a dump and they weren't
putting out good products.

~~~
waffle_ss
Yep, hence the pejorative "Rustington"

------
nymnsat
Another case of Cerberus being too aggressive with debt load and shoddy with
its operating plan. It's a wonder anyone lends to them to do LBOs any more.
Classic case of heads I win, tails other people lose

------
gumby
Since this is Hacker News, it's worth noting that the Remington Arms company
(Remington Outdoors) and Remington-Rand (maker of the Univac, latter merged
with Sperry and turned into Unisys) started out as the same company.
Remington-Rand in fact produced a version of the famous "M1911" automatic
handgun (well after the arms company had split off from Remington Typewriter)

The Wikipedia entries on these companies are quite thin, actually, but you can
follow the thread, if you care, this way:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Remington_and_Sons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Remington_and_Sons)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remington_Rand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remington_Rand)

~~~
Rebelgecko
Another interesting firearm connection: Vista Outdoor (parent of Savage Arms,
Federal Ammo, and Hoppes #9) was spun off from Orbital ATK (who makes the
Cygnus cargo spaceship and a whole range of solid rocket boosters)

------
dustinmoorenet
I think the gun industry has a problem with a product that doesn't really go
bad and isn't able to expand much. Sure, bullets need to be replaced, but it
is really hard to make a gun that wears out quickly but that also is not a
safety hazard for the shooter. At a certain point people will have enough guns
that will occasionally be used. And the more guns you have, the less any one
gun will wear out. Also, the hot guns on the market now are what? AR-15? That
gun was developed in the 1960s. Sure there is new tech in accessories, but
`the gun` can't really improve, because bigger and faster are limited by
physics and laws.

~~~
asmithmd1
They are still making new guns, take a look at this heinous thing:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_P90](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_P90)

The only possible use for this is calling lots of people quickly at close
range.

I became aware of this model and cartridge when I used Google Maps to see how
many gun shops are near Parkland High (3 within walking distance.) One of the
shops specializes in these weapons. If the shooter could have afforded it, I
would guess he would have bought this.

~~~
yial
The P90 in the US is largely restricted to military and LEO, there is a
variant, the PS90 with lower capacity (30) and longer barrel that is
available. the 5.7x28 round though isn't as effective in many ways at
/killing/ people as other rounds. It's more intended to wound, and increase
attrition.

If you want to see something more affordable, that is probably equally as, if
not more deadly, look at "AR" pistols (chambered in 5.56x45) instead of the
P90. (Or PS90).

Or, the SIG MPX, which while expensive, is also available.

Though, it sounds from your comment, that you and I are on very different
terms in opinion.

~~~
al3xnull
Deleted mine as this is exactly what I was trying to say.

------
smsm42
The article goes out of its way to put this into the context of Parkland
shootings and Democrat's following renewed push for firearm ownership
restrictions, and imply heavily - without saying it explicitly, as it would be
an obvious blatant lie - that somehow the two are connected, even though this
is an absolute coincidence. Inserting this angle into this article is yet
another act of journalistic malpractice.

------
kyleblarson
This is purely related to private equity shenanigans and has nothing to do
with the recent protests. Speaking of which, it's an interesting paradigm
shift that people typically march for rights, but this weekend's marches were
aiming to remove others' rights.

~~~
advisedwang
They are marching for their right to life.

~~~
jdpedrie
No no, that march is in January, but you don't hear about it on the news.

------
paulie_a
I am going to speculate because quite frankly I am too lazy to do the
research, but this seems to be fairly common? Is it an attempt reduce
liability? Or are they just terribly run businesses?

------
rboyd
How much did the 887 recall contribute to this?

------
DimitarIbra9
Remington 870 is a perfect shotgun to start with this fantastic sport. And it
can protect your family too.

~~~
yial
Sadly, they've changed the extractor design on the 870, which is prone to
breakage... Making the cheaper Mossberg 500 a better alternative at times.

Though, I do have a major soft spot for the 870 as visually it's much nicer.

------
dschuetz
I'm not sure what to think of it. Either it's a case for gun supporters saying
"see, their jobs are at stake! gun law supporters endanger the economy!!1!" Or
it's a case for gun law supporters saying "making guns is bad business anyway,
and your business model sucks!" At this time Remington basically says "I'm
done, buy me! I'm cheap now, because you have to deal with my inflated
business model". Remington could continue to make fewer, more exclusive guns,
but with this debt? I think the financial managers have been busy being
incompetent, so do not hire former managers of Remington.

~~~
avs733
It was incompetent financial and product management that did them in long
before the protests happened. If anything, 8 years of Obama just helped them
survive for a longer period of time than they otherwise might have.

------
banned1
It seems that the gun homicide epidemic is winding down!

Oh wait there was never an epidemic: [https://medium.com/@bjcampbell/the-gun-
homicide-epidemic-isn...](https://medium.com/@bjcampbell/the-gun-homicide-
epidemic-isnt-ac13b21ff3f9)

