the woodwind & brass & music123 etc.. were acquired all years ago while they were public... the company went from public to private & manufacturers are leaning on best buy to dig them out

worst recession in a century.... could easily call in to question GC's ability to stay afloat

Yes maybe.. but it is nice to talk about something else for a change...

LOL



[This message has been edited by Kingfrog (edited 02-08-2009).]

I love how GC aquires online retailers that then directly competes with its retail chains Sell so much online you end up putting your "physical" stores out of business.... It'll end up costing more to operate the store itself with labor costs, and all other expenses. In this economy it's better to just choose one or the other. Keep buying all the others and you got yourself in the same position as General Motors.....

I wasn't laughing at the thread. I just cut and pasted what I wrote here into another thread after reading some thoughts on discounts at Brick and Motar stores. I did not want to double post.

The GC issue is relevant and gos to prove VOLUME does not make up for MARGIN in a narrowly focused business. Someone else was moaning because his brick and mortar would not give him a "proper discount". He felt he should decide what dollars the business owner should make on the sale. I said I would rather not sell 4 Tyros to make the same dollars as selling one when I can make those same dollars and more selling much faster and far more numerous sales of $300 guitars at a faster rate then wasting hours demoing a Tyros for the same dollars made in 10 minutes. Thats the advantage of being in the MUSIC SALES business and not selling Stereos and TVS like Best Buy. The margins are across the board pretty much the same dollar for dollar. The item sold doesn't matter as much.

Explained the difference in MARGIN vs Dollar profit. We operate on margins. The same margin on a Fender Custom Shop as a Squire.

I know you didn't mean the thread..You and I both know what's been talked about over and over .. audya chord recognition has been beat to death..

I did some more research on the matter and it does indeed look like GC is in financial straits. When Bain Capital bought them in June of 2007 GC was already 200 million dollars in debt. Then in March of 2008 GC was listed as being 650 million in debt. That being the case and with the world economy now being in the proverbial "tank" I could imagine GC now being well over 1 billion in debt currently. Although that is just speculation. There has been talk of a Chapter 11 reorganization but that hasn't been either confirmed or denied from reliable sources yet.

It's hard to imagine that GC would suddenly go belly up but stranger things have happened. With other "major" companies dropping like flies all around the U.S. and worldwide too I would have to believe, then I suppose it 'could' happen to GC as well, although I hope it doesn't of course.

I did notice a strange phenomemon at my local GC recently. Seems all the regular employees in the keyboard section are no longer there, at least none of the faces look familiar to me. And I knew many of "previous" salespeople fairly well too. Maybe they got privy to some information the rest of us haven't gotten yet and they vamoosed because they knew the writing was on the wall. Hard to say though, because GC can sometimes have a dramatic employee turn over rate.

So DanO you could very well be right on in your assumption, or rather your friend's assumption with his information that he passed along to you.

Where's Chicken Little when you need him, eh? lol..

All the best,
Mike

[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 02-08-2009).]

GC is closing some stores. Here is a blub about them when they WERE a public company..They were in trouble then.

Privately they are closing stores. http://www.fool.com/news/foth/2002/foth020611.htm

Thanks for looking some facts..

Look at what has happened to Toyota over the last year.They lost billions of dollars.. Who would have predicted that Toyota would lose BILLION !

Imagine Yamaha being owed millions of dollars by a company or companies that can not pay on time. This whole economy could really make life hard for many musical instrument corporations..

I know Yamaha is big, but are they biiger than Toyota ?