I, like everyone else, do not have a crystal ball but I think what we are seeing is the slow demise of a once really good company.
Mike
I respectfully disagree with slow demise. It appears the new owners bought a small company living in a giant facility. Part of making a go of it is to recoup some capital by selling the oversize facility, and maybe excess machinery, and then buy a smaller place. Go to the facebook post and look at the 40 photos! It’s a great factory tour with plans on the wall and decorations made from leftover checkerboard trim. It brought back a lot of memories of visiting my dad at work in places that look just like SIG. Wood paneling, white linoleum 12”x12”’s on the floor, or concrete where the linoleum wasn’t needed or has been removed, wooden ceilings with rows and rows of fluorescent lights, machine shops with everything painted a similar color.
The Realtor had this to say about SIG, not about the property:
“SIG Manufacturing is not for sale nor is it closing its doors. The company is reorganizing and relocating to a different facility. There are some parts of the business that could be for sale such as the non RC model kits, the wood production, and paint and fuel division. If you would like more detail please message us or email andy@aerealtyinc.com”
So if “non RC model kits” means Control Line, then “could be for sale” might mean the new owners are also looking to divest the CL designs and kits, which is not a “slow demise”, it’s a quick end and it has already happened, we just haven’t been notified yet. Does anyone have any interest in buying the CL part of the business? Anyone? Bueller?
SIG did a pretty great job producing CL kits for a LOT of years. But it was helpful that they piggybacked on the RC production which was probably much larger. Anyone attempting to produce the line of Control Line kits and ONLY the CL kits won’t be piggybacking. You can’t buy a shipping container of balsa, sort it by weight, and shift the heavy balsa over to the RC line if you DON’T HAVE an RC line, right? Similarly you can’t just throw away the heavy stuff, doubling or tripling the cost of the light stuff, or risk being able to sell it to someone else. Who wants heavy balsa? The term heavy balsa is an oxymoron like “Heavy Lightweight Wood” (jumbo shrimp, clearly misunderstood, deafening silence).
The way balsa prices are going, and also the pricing on kits by Brodak, I don’t think anyone will ever be successful again with a line of CL kits. Maybe someone will gather up the designs and sell laser cut short kits, but even that is iffy.
If I lived near that facility I’d probably beg borrow or steal a key, and volunteer to help with current shipping, production, move & transition…. If enough people did that, the new owners would be a little closer to NOT losing their reputation and customer base and failing epically.
Topic: Sig selling? (Read 8912 times)
