chinese company purchases stax?

[cobra_kai]

Anybody see this thread over at HF

http://www.head-fi.org/t/584408/breaking-news-chinese-company-acquires-stax

Is there any truth to this? I hope not...

[TMoney]

Yeah, I saw it.

I don't want to make any assumptions, but I certainly hope the quality and products are not adversely affected by this move.

[The Monkey]

Just trying to find some english language sources because my Chinese ain't so good:

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2011/12/09/5983421.htm

[Torpedo]

If that's true I hope they won't change a single bit of the company goals and quality standards. Otherwise Stax 009 will be a swan song

[Dreadhead]

It's almost certainly true looking through all the stories. Their stated goal is to gain access to the high end of the market and the trickle down exclusivity that implies. My guess is they may not change much as far as quality but they may move manufacturing to China. Who knows.

[cobra_kai]

It does look like the story is true. Hopefully quality will not suffer, but I think it is possible this could be a good thing. If this new company is much larger and financially stable they could support the stax guys to make crazy new products with much less financial risk. The story doesn't seem to mention anything about what happens to current employees though, hopefully they are all being kept on.

[Torpedo]

They may take down manufacturing costs moving production to China, but unless they train their Chinese employees to be extremely careful and cautious, the affair of drivers getting dust may become a trademark.

If this is true, I wouldn't buy a TOL Stax product at current prices until proved they're every bit as good quality as the current ones. Maybe in 4- 5 years hahaha.

[cobra_kai]

Might be a good time to invest in some current stax equipment...

[Leonardo Drummond]

I think people at the other forum are overreacting, but then what Edifier's been saying about making the company more profitable, introducing more affordable models ("with portable electrostatics as the main product") and using their production know-how, lowering the production costs, is seriously worrying. It seems as if they want to completely change how Stax does things.

[ktm]

Let's hope that Yama's is the first thing they fix when they take over.

[seacard]

$1.5 million? That's not that much. We should have gotten 15 Mafia members to chip in $100,000 each to own a 10% share of Stax. Between Kevin, Justin, Birgir, and Co., they could probably take the company to a new level, wrt to both headphones and amps.

[Dreadhead]

15 million not 1.5.

[seacard]

I guess there is some disagreement about the final amount, but it sounds like it is indeed only $1.5M, at least according to the Japanese source cited in the thread over yonder. One of the first posters apparently mistakenly said it was 97.6 million yuan, but the actual amount is 9.76.

[Dreadhead]

oh sorry for correcting then.

1.5 sounds about where I would have thought.

[seacard]

I would have thought the brand-name was worth more. There is a lot of goodwill behind it, so even if you just want to run the name into the ground, I think you could use the Stax name to sell a lot of low-end crap (see Marantz) and make a handsome profit. Obviously both sides did their due diligence, so my wild guess is clearly off.

[The Monkey]

There's no way it could be only $1.5MM.

[Dreadhead]

It's a boutique manufacturer, I would be pretty surprised if it had more than $0.5M in annual revenue. The English translation has the 9.7 million Yuan number which is definitely 1.5. Doesn't mention assuming any debt which I would assume is required to be mentioned if it's being done.

[cobra_kai]

$1.5 million sounds extremely low thats like 300 SR009. $15 million sounds much more reasonable.

[justin]

It's a boutique manufacturer, I would be pretty surprised if it had more than $0.5M in annual revenue. The English translation has the 9.7 million Yuan number which is definitely 1.5. Doesn't mention assuming any debt which I would assume is required to be mentioned if it's being done.

no way, they have more than $500k annual revenue. i would guess they are around $4-5 million annual revenue. really depends how much of the 'low end' they sell that we don't hear about.

i think the $1.5 million sounds accurate.

Edited December 9, 2011 by justin

[VPI]

1.5 Million seems really low, assuming they are not swimming in debt.

[Cankin]

Yay Chinese!!!

[Dreadhead]

no way, they have more than $500k annual revenue. i would guess they are around $4-5 million annual revenue. really depends how much of the 'low end' they sell that we don't hear about.

i think the $1.5 million sounds accurate.

I stand corrected.

Edited December 9, 2011 by Dreadhead

[justin]

1.5 Million seems really low, assuming they are not swimming in debt.

i think you've just spent too much time in Manhattan.

[Voltron]

There's no way it could be only $1.5MM.

Truth. No way, period. Well, I'm glad I've already got what I need and I should be set for some time to come. Still, there is no reason that this purchase necessarily means things will change. China is going to own everything pretty soon, anyway, so maybe it's good Stax was on the short list.

[VPI]

i think you've just spent too much time in Manhattan.

So I could either buy my next door neighbors condo or buy the Stax Corp. for the same cost?