Sorry, I never finished my thought since I was logged in from work...
Yes, parts will be available until components are completely obsolete. What did happen is that really great customer service was lost and parts pretty much doubled in cost overnight during the acquisition. Thankfully, PUPs, and all campers in general, are pretty generic when it comes to components and accessories. What will really matter is if the new owners pulls the manufacturing to somewhere else. I think the reason the transition from buying a Coleman pop-up to buying a Coleman pop-up by Fleetwood went smoothly because they kept the plant, its dies, patterns, and forms, and many of the personnel.
WHOA!!!!....I wonder if this is the same Blackstreet that just lost 2.4 million dollars from my Pension Fund
*Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming - "WOW, What a ride!"
And... Private equity has the big advantage of not having to worry about the next quarter's numbers to "appease" the shareholders. They generally can take a longer view and this can be beneficial to a company. I say can, not always.
This "issue" of the next quarters numbers is a weakness of our existing financial systems. It TENDS to emphasize short term fixes to any company problems at the expense of the long term health of a corp. In fact, bad financial times like now can sometimes be beneficial in that if its going to be "bad" anyway, a CEO can make some of those hard decisions that get put off in better times due to the next quarter pressures. They figure OK, the next couple of quarters are going to suck, they might as well suck a little more while we "tuckpoint" the foundation...
Investments groups buying companies do not mean they want the company to succeed. It is usually the opposite. Look at what the Apollo goups did to Linen's and Things. They bought a company that had no debt and in two years have now filed for Bankruptcy. The same happened to Frank Nursery...It is usually about the real estate and not the company.
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