Members arcadesonfire Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 The independent shop "Main Drag Music" owns the Williamsburg music scene in Brooklyn, for the most part. I think it's their fault why I'm not the only guy with a vintage Traynor head anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members misterstomach Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 @ MS, above:Do you remember Great Guitars on Hawthorne? It's where I bought my Ehlers in '81.20 or so acoustics....one guy who knew his stuff...monthly concerts like: 40 chairs and Paul Chasman.It wasn't all bad. i actually didn't grow up here in portland, though we also have a lot of great music shops. i grew up in nashville, which also had a ton of them, not surprisingly i guess with all the music there. nowadays, portland is much better for local shops than nashville, it seems. i haven't lived there for quite a while but when i've gone back to visit, gear shopping isn't near what it used to be and some of my favorite stores are gone. gear shopping isn't the same anywhere really though. a little 'cause of guitar center, but mostly the internet. really cool used {censored} rarely ends up in stores anymore with ebay and craigslist being so easy. and price is totally homogonized now because of that. you rarely, if ever find unusually cool deals on used stuff. it takes no effort for anyone to figure out what something is and how much it normally sells for. if four people in the past month have $600 for an amp on ebay, that's what they'll sell it for. if it doesn't sell locally, they'll just throw it on the internet. there's really not much incentive for them to bargain or offer a cheap price. and gone are the days when someone didn't know what they had as far as value or desirability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members crohny Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 Probably some of that. But GC has an online store too. If the point of Bain is to make them more efficient, I do wonder why they have 3 different online stores available, with basically the same content and same prices? I would've streamlined that by now, but what do I know.It is nice though to walk into a shop and feel the instrument first. If you buy it online, even the same guitar, you aren't getting the same thing. Maybe for pedals and strings that's fine, but not quite as good as feeling an actual guitar, although I've done both myself with pretty good results both ways. giving people three options. Hate Guitar Center, well you can buy from MF or M123. That is if you don't know they are all the same company. Which a good number of people actually don't. Plus, since they are all the same company and GC is the only one with actual store locations, I'm sure the online sales all come from warehouses that are shared between the 3 and handle packing and shipping. That is all speculation though as I do not know how they handle shipping for the three companies and all that jazz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ispunk Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members object88 Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 about $1.7 billion in debt... This is the part that makes it most difficult to believe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mmolteratx Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 Isn't Bane one of the villains in the new Batman flick?Is the new Batman flick actually just subliminal political commentary? That was the joke. :poke: And I don't think it's subliminal. From the trailers, some sort of economic inequality is a big part of the plot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members IRG Posted June 11, 2012 Author Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 giving people three options. Hate Guitar Center, well you can buy from MF or M123. That is if you don't know they are all the same company. Which a good number of people actually don't. Plus, since they are all the same company and GC is the only one with actual store locations, I'm sure the online sales all come from warehouses that are shared between the 3 and handle packing and shipping. That is all speculation though as I do not know how they handle shipping for the three companies and all that jazz. I don't know either, but I bet your fairly close to right here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members IRG Posted June 11, 2012 Author Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 This is the part that makes it most difficult to believe. Why? These firms have tons of capital at their disposal. It's what they do. And sometimes when they lose money, they end up making money, i.e. tax write offs. Bottom line, Bain is much better at making a profit than a guitar store is. Sooner or later if they can't turn a profit and pay off their debts, Bain will sell them off in pieces or something similar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members IRG Posted June 11, 2012 Author Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 My own thoughts on M&P shops that can't compete against the GC of the world, both models have their strengths and weaknesses. I have a good local shop, it's been around for years. The owners are all very competent. Their prices are fair, same as GC, their trade in policy is a lot better. Their service is a lot better. But the quantity of new instruments is limited due to their physical size. Some M&P shops struggle with the business side of things. THe large chains may have more business acumen, but they lack the love of the instrument/music in their operations. Seems like having regional chains might be a good way to go, with locally owned enterprises as a way of making them feel more independent and catering to a local market better than a one size fits all mentality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members object88 Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 Why? These firms have tons of capital at their disposal. It's what they do. And sometimes when they lose money, they end up making money, i.e. tax write offs. Bottom line, Bain is much better at making a profit than a guitar store is. Sooner or later if they can't turn a profit and pay off their debts, Bain will sell them off in pieces or something similar. Just a gut feeling. 1.7 billions dollars is a LOT of money to be in debt. I would think that if that were the case, they would be taking drastic measures to step what must be a hemorrhage. But then again, I am not an economist, nor do I play one on TV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members IRG Posted June 11, 2012 Author Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 I think they bought the GC franchise with a fair amount of debt already in hand. Sometimes you lose more money too, before the "turn around" happens. If it happens. In this economy, guitars and amps are not staples for most people (this forum being the exception, lol). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Raintes Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 Can you imagine GC going under? Talk about a mom and pop revival. Great. $12 D'addarios 10s at my local m&p music store. Awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members misterstomach Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 Great. $12 D'addarios 10s at my local m&p music store. Awesome. i recently bought strings at guitar center and they were more expensive than at the local shop i usually go to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Reaganomics! Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 If the wikipedia page for GC is correct the Bain deal was a 1.9 million dollar buyout, which would be what the company was worth. When the debt was added on it was 2.1 Billion, so I guess 200 million dollars of debt? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Brian Marshall Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 My gut feeling is that no matter what GC will go on in one form or another. Even if it ends up that Fender/Gibson/Marshall/whoever else ponies up the cash to buy them out. (this wouldnt be too hard if GC were on the brink of bankruptcy. There's too many with an interest in keeping lots of big box stores for musical instruments open, and that would likely be a cheaper solution than building their own. Bain is neither a unique, nor innately evil company. If they were taken out of the equation someone else would do the same/similar thing. You can call it vulture capitalism, but the truth is in many cases picking the corpse clean is beneficial in the long run... just like it is in nature. It's not what I would call meaningful work, but that's part of what private equity does. I am not a romney fan, but I don't have problems with his involvement at bain per se. Framing it as 'job creation' is a farce though. That's not the focus of a company like bain. Leveraged buyouts are almost always about opportunism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mhuxtable Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 Y'all are talking like you've never heard of Sam Ash. We have a small local brick and mortar store that is thriving, but they focus on a part of the industry the big boxes can't touch: vintage, custom builds and top quality repairs/restoring/refinishing. They have awesome vintage guitars/amps that are at reasonable prices. All 3 of the dudes that work there are incredible luthiers and build amazing stuff. Plus their workmanship on repairs is second to none....no one else works on my stuff, and if they ever move, I'm gonna be {censored}ed because I really wouldn't trust anyone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BG76 Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 I always thought MARS was a lot better then GC (at least around me). I was surprised they went under first. I used to really like the layout of that place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members plaidbeer Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 I always thought MARS was a lot better then GC (at least around me). I was surprised they went under first. I used to really like the layout of that place. I'm not sure who was stalking who, but both MARS locations in the Dallas area were located within a mile or two of a Guitar Center. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tstrahle Posted June 11, 2012 Members Share Posted June 11, 2012 Bain bought GC in 2007, after GC hired Goldman Sachs to find a buyer for them. Way back then there were bloggers predicting that this would mean the demise of GC. It hasn't so far. That's not really their business model. They buy companies that they think aren't living up to their profit potential and they make them more profitable. They don't generally try to liquidate them.Bain has purchased other companies that are still around, some that they still own, including Toys R Us, Sealy mattress, Burger King, and Dominos Pizza. Exactly. I owned stock in GC when Bain bought out my shares. Doubled my investment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Elliott Damage Posted June 12, 2012 Members Share Posted June 12, 2012 It's true, Guitar Center is in trouble. Fender is going public and one of the possible issues they listed in their IPO paperwork was that their biggest customer, Guitar Center, wouldn't be able to pay them. Edit: found the filing. Page 22. http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/767959/000119312512101896/d293340ds1.htm#tx293340_2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members |\|\|\ Posted June 12, 2012 Members Share Posted June 12, 2012 guitar center is in such trouble in fact, that they just opened a new store in north portland a couple weeks ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Villano Dude Posted June 12, 2012 Members Share Posted June 12, 2012 Holy {censored}, you mean you couldn't shop every day of the week? How did you cope? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Faldoe Posted June 12, 2012 Members Share Posted June 12, 2012 If GC does down..I'll be there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Trick Fall Posted June 12, 2012 Members Share Posted June 12, 2012 It's true, Guitar Center is in trouble. Fender is going public and one of the possible issues they listed in their IPO paperwork was that their biggest customer, Guitar Center, wouldn't be able to pay them.Edit: found the filing. Page 22.http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/767959/000119312512101896/d293340ds1.htm#tx293340_2 Interesting, I feel like the problem with these private equity deals is they load up these companies with tremendous amounts of debt and suck out all the cash in the form of high interest payments on that debt which limits the amount of cash the companies have to reinvest in their business let alone do things like giving raises to their employees. Of course Wall Street loves these deals because they generate tremendous amounts of fees for the investment banks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Firebrand Posted June 12, 2012 Members Share Posted June 12, 2012 GC is in no trouble, but their status was downgraded to being a higher risk partner by an independent consulting form (Moody). Let's not forget, that like GC, Fender owns a couple half dozen companies too. MF is technically owned by GC but they, and Music 123, operate independently of each other. Bain also owns BestBuy, which is a company that is in greater trouble than GC. I personally am more concerned about Gibson. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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