merged with the original thread
 

One thing that seems to be consistent in most of these articles is that they state Gibson's 'core business' is profitable, but it has tons of debt. Debt that was caused by purchasing these other companies (like Phillips). Seems a typical story actually - company veers off from its core business to make more money selling stuff they know little about and bring down the whole company. Sad, but nothing new here.

MandolinPicker
One thing that seems to be consistent in most of these articles is that they state Gibson's 'core business' is profitable, but it has tons of debt. Debt that was caused by purchasing these other companies (like Phillips)..

Gibson didn't even buy the profitable part of Philips. What Gibson bought was Philip's consumer audio products division. A division that Philips had already downsized to 1900 staff, shifted to Hong Kong and tried re-branding it as “Xoom” (information about Xoom from the Financial Times). According to Henry J’s blurb at the time this purchase would be the key to turning Gibson Brands into the major player in consumer audio/video.

Philips were once a big name in budget hi-fi and televisions, especially in Europe, but they lost their market position years ago. To revive the brand now would mean taking on Samsung, Sony, LG, Panasonic etc. Which menas injecting a lot of capital, a lot of ideas and being able to wait a while before there's any sight of a profit being made. I suspect even if Gibson has good ideas it lacks the capital and certainly can't afford to wait many months or even years to get a return on the required investment.

Gibson Brands have the appearance of a company that's been buying up other companies in the hope that something, somehow will be the money spinner and trying to shore up the company's financial position by increasing it's apparent capital value while not actually making an adequate income to meet its existing debts.

I guess it's a strategy that might be useful in avoiding or trading through bankruptcy because the various subsidiaries can be sold off to raise some cash to keep creditors happy - though any prospective purchasers might decide to wait for the bankruptcy fire sale in the hope of picking up bargains. Or maybe someone at Gibson was trying the "borrow money to buy up companies, then use the income from them to repay the loans taken out to by them” strategy. Which is a gamble that can show high returns or can kill off the company very quickly if things don't work out.

Whatever happens I expect the guitar division will probably survive in some form because even if current sales are down it's still likely to be an attractive proposition to someone. Maybe PRS, Fender or one of the Japanese or Korean companies might even end up with it. >:-)

Now the creditors want to get rid of Henry:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/gibson-creditors-are-said-to-want-new-ceo-before-rescue-deal/ar-BBJnT15?OCID=ansmsnnews11
 
 
 

stxx
https://www.cnbc.com/2018....html?__source=xfinity|mod&par=xfinity
 
Maybe its time Gibson gave us the permanent unlock / Auth codes??

I can't help but think a permanent unlock code to the SOANR user base is the absolute very least concern of Gibson right now.

don't care anymore.
 

Jim Roseberry
Gibson generates 1-Billion a year in revenue.
Someone is asleep at the wheel.

I am looking for some reliable source that says a) what Gibson's core business is, and b) that it is actually profitable. Presumably that would indicate that the guitar manufacturing could show a profit if not for the onerous debt service required to keep Gibson Brands running. I am not even sure that is true. 
 
In any event, total revenue is a useless measure of anything except sales volume. If you sell a billion hamburgers a year for a dollar apiece, you have a billion dollars in revenue. If it costs you a dollar and ten cents to make each burger, you have a one hundred million dollar a year loss.