Simms Bought for $192 Million

Guy Gregory said:
Yeah, I know its from Red October. Just wonder if we might give these guys a little slack. We seem as a society to convict on assumptions, and pardon though the facts are right in front of us. I wish the best for Simms customers and employees.
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Went back and looked,at it again. It does announce correctly at the beginning, but is very easily confused for the other because of Al Gores rhythm at the end.

As for the merger? meh. It's not the end of the world.
 
G_Smolt said:
No upper mgmt changes...KC consulting, Casey still in the driver's seat.
No rep force changes...something that has predicated shitty decisions in the FF industry the last few years (see also: Abel, AirFlo, Hardy, Ross, etc, etc).
A break from the "whipping post" of short-term investment capital, which led to some...interesting decision-making in the last 5 years at Simms.
I, for one, am looking forward to the stability potentially offered by this acquisition, and think Simms has the opportunity to settle back into the key markets which built the brand.

IMO, and YMMV.
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This is exactly the "talking points" Jasmillo was talking about in the post just above yours. Of course they aren't going to announce any major, or even small, changes at this point. They bought the brand name, don't want to fuck it up now! But in time....creep....

I hope I'm wrong. My last job was for a $100mill outdoor apparel company that eventually got parted out to licensees. My current job is for a $20mill niche outdoor apparel company that is in the process of being sold, but with the owner keeping "minority control". The rhetoric is the same as what is coming out of Simms...
 
What is known about the founders of Skwala? It seems that their first retail sales locations were/are Simms shops, and or influential fly shops in MT. Who owns the company? Did they previously work for Simms?
 
Derek Young said:
What is known about the founders of Skwala? It seems that their first retail sales locations were/are Simms shops, and or influential fly shops in MT. Who owns the company? Did they previously work for Simms?
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Yo guys...

The fellers behind Skwala were at the helm of Sitka for about a decade. legit anglers who have the legit background. I dont think there's any connection to Simms. at the helm is a guy named Kevin Sloan. I work with him via partnership with BHA and have been nothing but impressed with their conservation ethos and well designed product.

My 2 cents. Worthy product, well thought out, good range of movement, give it a run, make the decision for yourself

www.flyfisherman.com

Skwala Start-up Enters the Outerwear Market - Fly Fisherman

Fledgling Montana brand sells waders, jackets, pants, shorts, and sun shirts.
www.flyfisherman.com www.flyfisherman.com
 
Many years ago Far Bank bought out Sage, Redington and Rio lines. I've noticed no decline in products or service. So you never know.
 
Josh said:
Nothing wrong with this. The Drake remains worth reading.
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I'm just playing off the previous skwala thread. Although the drake is a little rich for my blood, at least it's not flylords...
 
GAT said:
Many years ago Far Bank bought out Sage, Redington and Rio lines. I've noticed no decline in products or service. So you never know.
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Far Bank is a tad different since it's owned by the Joshua Green Corporation, which is basically a private equity firm based in Seattle but they seem to be less interested in dumping their businesses after a few years than most PE firms. I think Joshua Green Corp has owned Sage since the early 90s.

Simms is now owned by a publicly traded company as a component of Vista Outdoors so it's apples-to-oranges now. Simms took an investment from Castanea Partners a few years ago, which is a private equity firm that functions more like most PE firms that exist to rapidly grow/expand a business and then try to dump it within 5 years. Their investment correlated closely with the Simms push into conventional fishing/lifestyle apparel.

At the moment, it seems like Orvis and Patagonia are the only two major players that haven't been snapped up by PE, and probably never will.

I'd actually venture to say that Rio has declined in quality significantly in the 10+ years that Far Bank has owned them. Redington, I think has gotten generally better. Sage is pretty much the same but with a much heavier focus on marketing these days.
 
GOTY said:
It's just purely optics and politics at work. Many pension plans/university endowments/hedge funds/politically charged entities are being pressured to divest of any and all companies (i.e. sell their stock) if those companies have anything to do with guns, ammo, and/or anything that gets headlines (oil was a big one until recently....). This type of split is quite common to get around that.

An extreme example would be a company could generate $100 billion in revenue from solving world hunger, but if they also made $2 from selling a single bullet, they are deemed uninvestible by many. Letting some other entity book the revenues from that $2 gets around it. Safe to say Simms won't be bucketed alongside Remington.
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It’s ok to not have idiots investing in your bullet company.
 
If they go in the same direction as other companies bought up in recent years I'll be done with Simms.
 
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Mac17 said:
If they go in the same direction as other companies bought up in recent years I'll be done with Simms.
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IMO, it looks like they're on the up and up. I don't think they would choose Bozeman just to make it easier for pissed off people to come pounding on their door. 🤣
 
GOTY said:
It's a public company that owns a number of brands that you probably know, but they split into two divisions to keep guns/ammo/etc under a separate entity.

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Ouch! Those are all hunting/camping products and I wonder if they're more interested in the SIMMS clothing line than the wader side of the business. They seem under-invested in outdoor clothing to compliment their other brands.
 
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