Ecotech joins BRS as a sister company..

[Mywifeisgunnakillme]

The Fall Out
All the really passionate guys that designed the really great stuff are going to leave. It won't happen right away but as time passes and Job opportunities arise they will leave. Mainly because the work environment will no longer be friendly.

This is what i meant by creating competition and opportunity in a prior post... The best decision i ever made was start my own business and nearly all of my previous employer's clients came with me....

Just saying these things (buyouts) are inevitable (good for those owners making a buttload of money selling!) ... it's cyclical... and not all bad... Although i agree with what you are saying in very large part as to what happens to companies being bought out...

New competition will undoubtedly occur and those people can later get bigger and sell and retire too! lol.

 

[flourishofmediocrity]

You have a point. I think you may be a glass half full kind of guy.

I'm not, actually. I am saying I don't know what is going to happen, and I have no idea if this is going to skew "good" or "bad" in the long run.

 

[Lyss]

I hear you, the same thing happened to me in tech support. I am not trying to minimize your experience or anyone else's, but that was YOUR experience and it taints your view of what happened. I'm also not trying to say that it is "good", I'm just saying that when you take your experience and try to project it on every situation you see, that is not an accurate representation of reality, and I think it is also VERY difficult to say that you KNOW this is going to be bad. You cannot predict the future or what WILL happen any more than anyone else and saying "yeah, but it happened to me" is still not a reason to believe it will happen here.

TL;DR it is just as fallacious to say everything will be "great" as it is to say "people's lives are at stake" because nobody can see the future.

Just saying -- how many ppl across various industries have to chime in and give the same experience before you'll believe it might just kinda be the way things work.

 

[jDoSe]

I'm not, actually. I am saying I don't know what is going to happen, and I have no idea if this is going to skew "good" or "bad" in the long run.

I believe he is trying to say that just because there are two possible outcomes (good or bad), the odds are not 50/50.

Statistically, one has a much much greater chance of occuring, so that is the one he is betting on (although there is still a very minute chance it goes the other way).

 

[Mywifeisgunnakillme]

Just saying -- how many ppl across various industries have to chime in and give the same experience before you'll believe it might just kinda be the way things work.

This is definitely a two sided coin.

Some things about these companies bought out will be totally demolished... e.g., local jobs from distribution centers closed will be ended, etc. Somethings from customer perspective will get better and other things worse. In the end, out of the change--in long term--i totally agree that the creative people that make our products will either continue to do so for the new empire or if not allowed they'll do it on there own. Ryan from BRS said as much... He'd leave if he didn't like it...

 

[flourishofmediocrity]

Just saying -- how many ppl across various industries have to chime in and give the same experience before you'll believe it might just kinda be the way things work.

I believe when someone says they got laid off and it was bad for them, I have never alluded to the contrary. I also disagree with the sentiment or argument that something as complex as a group of human beings making decisions is going to end in a way that could be described as "that's just how it works". And again, the ONLY point I am trying to make (several times in fact) is that even if you knew every decision that every person involved is going to make and that the outcome will be jobs lost (pretty sure some MD employees already lost their jobs) that:

-- it is not accurate in any way to try to boil down the entire situation to a binary 0 (good) or 1 (bad) --

and if you are doing that, you are not looking at everything, or you are biased because of one of your own past experiences.

I believe he is trying to say that just because there are two possible outcomes (good or bad), the odds are not 50/50.

Statistically, one has a much much greater chance of occuring, so that is the one he is betting on (although there is still a very minute chance it goes the other way).

I don't think you can even say this. Is all of this data collected somewhere in a database we can query to get an answer like: "70% of all acquisitions end with 50% or more of the workforce losing their jobs?" Where are these "statistics"?

 

[Lyss]

I believe when someone says they got laid off and it was bad for them, I have never alluded to the contrary. I also disagree with the sentiment or argument that something as complex as a group of human beings making decisions is going to end in a way that could be described as "that's just how it works". And again, the ONLY point I am trying to make (several times in fact) is that even if you knew every decision that every person involved is going to make and that the outcome will be jobs lost (pretty sure some MD employees already lost their jobs) that:

-- it is not accurate in any way to try to boil down the entire situation to a binary 0 (good) or 1 (bad) --

and if you are doing that, you are not looking at everything, or you are biased because of one of your own past experiences.



I don't think you can even say this. Is all of this data collected somewhere in a database we can query to get an answer like: "70% of all acquisitions end with 50% or more of the workforce losing their jobs?" Where are these "statistics"?

No, I was talking about how investment capital works. These companies will assuredly do some or all of these things at some point in the future. Will that turn out to be good or bad? Well, that is in the eye of the beholder, of course. But you've got person after person, all from various industries, chiming in saying how VC and investment companies operate. That is how they operate.

 

[flourishofmediocrity]

No, I was talking about how investment capital works. These companies will assuredly do some or all of these things at some point in the future. Will that turn out to be good or bad? Well, that is in the eye of the beholder, of course. But you've got person after person, all from various industries, chiming in saying how VC and investment companies operate. That is how they operate.

I'm sure there are people that would say the opposite about VC and investment companies. Neither can say what WILL happen.

 

[Lyss]

I'm sure there are people that would say the opposite about VC and investment companies. Neither can say what WILL happen.

Okay, I'm done arguing. I do think you may be naive about how this kind of thing works, but it's not a big deal. I never said it was good or bad, just that it is.

 

[dvgyfresh]

I'm sure there are people that would say the opposite about VC and investment companies. Neither can say what WILL happen.

My old company bought another , we closed their warehouses , laid off workers , gave more work to existing staff and funneled the money into other areas ie not expanding the bought company I left lol

 

[blaxsun]

Well, the reefing industry had a good run for a few years there at least.

 

[malacoda]

So many crystal balls in this thread...

 

[WVNed]

So many crystal balls in this thread...

Very cheap cast glass is all I am seeing. Change = doom.

Off the shelf mid size tanks are gone. A tremendous amount of equipment sold and stocked is for these size tanks.
How many people are going to jump from a nano to an expensive custom?

In a contracting economy mergers like this allow the best parts of 3 companies to be saved instead of all 3 of them closing.

 

[robbyg]

So many crystal balls in this thread...

It really is not all that complicated.

Engineers and others start a businesses because they have a Passion for making something that they have envisioned. They hope that at the end of the day it will work and sell well so they can design and produce more things.

Venture Capitalist have a Passion for Making money and that is as far as it goes.

As stated by definition of a VC:
The VC fund will buy a stake in these firms, nurture their growth and look to cash out with a substantial return on Investment (ROI).

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

Very cheap cast glass is all I am seeing. Change = doom.

Off the shelf mid size tanks are gone. A tremendous amount of equipment sold and stocked is for these size tanks.
How many people are going to jump from a nano to an expensive custom?

In a contracting economy mergers like this allow the best parts of 3 companies to be saved instead of all 3 of them closing.

" the best parts of 3 companies to be saved"...That is exactly what spin gets spun prior to the 'worst parts' of the three companies to be let go.

 

[Lyss]

Very cheap cast glass is all I am seeing. Change = doom.

Off the shelf mid size tanks are gone. A tremendous amount of equipment sold and stocked is for these size tanks.
How many people are going to jump from a nano to an expensive custom?

In a contracting economy mergers like this allow the best parts of 3 companies to be saved instead of all 3 of them closing.

The economy is actually expanding now. It contracted in 2020 b/c of the pandemic.

" the best parts of 3 companies to be saved"...That is exactly what spin gets spun prior to the 'worst parts' of the three companies to be let go.

Also, I think the outlook is still pretty modest/cautious b/c of delta variant but I’m pretty sure the economy is now expanding/recovering.

 

[Mywifeisgunnakillme]

So many crystal balls in this thread...

Enough anecdotes make a pattern, and there are more enough regarding this common practice of buying up businesses, making changes, consolidating, cutting the fat, and profiting investors over the short run. Common sense says large investment corporations (and anyone in business) would buy up companies to make money and benefit their own in short run--not in the long run.

So i tend to kind of think these mergers are not going to help us reefers on the whole, at least not directly or immediately.

The public relations fluff of more money for more research and development and bettering the hobby is the not reason for the buyout. The reason for the buyout is to make money for investors, that's what the parent company does... If research and development helps them make money--over other strategies--they might do that. Or they might not.

Time will tell... Seems like a lot of people are saying that's not very likely... I don't think that is reading a crystal ball, i think it is people sharing experiences.

If the investment company does not use increased profits (from consolidating and cutting the fat) towards research and development enough, the creative brains will leave these companies and start their own or work for another company, which could be great for competition, unless they just go do something else entirely because of the sour taste in their mouth...

In other words, helping BRS and Neptune and Ecotech will occur to the extent the parent company investors makes more money. Whether that helps reefers directly--totally remains to be seen.

Does anyone have any story/anecdote about any huge investment parent company buying up smaller companies and investing in more research and development of products (or caring about the reefing hobby)???

 

[ReefRxSWFL]

Maybe Mobius will be developed to be the sustem controller without the need for a “controller”. That was the long term goal. All they need is a power strip that addresses power needs, pH, and temperature, and thats all i would need. They already have lighting, flow and dosing. They can add some sort of Calcium, alk monitering too for those who like that function. Would be nice….

 

[WVNed]

The economy is actually expanding now. It contracted in 2020 b/c of the pandemic.

Also, I think the outlook is still pretty modest/cautious b/c of delta variant but I’m pretty sure the economy is now expanding/recovering.

LOL

 

[flourishofmediocrity]

It really is not all the complicated.

I’m guessing you meant to say it’s not all that complicated and that to me is one of the biggest fallacies in this conversation. There’s a saying: “the less you know about a problem, the easier it is to solve”.

I would never take any advice from someone on the subject of any business transaction if they attempted to characterize it as “not complicated”