Black Diamond and Gregory have been bought.

Doesn't Osprey still own itself or are they under Cascade Designs?

You're right! Osprey IS an independently owned company and a sweet one at that.

Marmot is self owned still, as well as columbia sports is the company that owns mountain hardwear and montrail. Westcomb is still self owned. Patagonia shoes are made by merrell or wolverine, and Big Agnes is self owned still I believe as well. i could probably find more but I wont waste time. this is the second time Black diamond has been bought. it was originally something else till it filed for bankruptcy and the employees bought it.

Black Diamond was the hardgoods side of Chouinard. Chouinard sold it to employees (in '86?) after being the subject of numerous lawsuits.

Hard not to be cynical about the acquisition of a company. On the other hand, hard to argue against Metcalf as a CEO. We shall see!

And Gregory?! They're still in business?

This is not the first time Gregory has been bought out. Bianchi International bought it in the ‘80s and kept Wayne on as CEO. Bianchi did not devote much in the way of marketing and the company faltered somewhat. Gregory eventually bought it back for considerably less than what he sold it and worked out his pent-up frustrations with an aggressive advertising approach combined with quality to bring the company back and beyond.

Here is a photo of the new owner of Black Diamond and Gregory.

It's the "dude" on the right…HAHAHAHA

On the right, or on the left?

Marmot is actually owned by Jarden, but that's somewhat hidden. At first glance, K2 owns Marmot, but Jarden owns K2. Jarden is a big company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarden

Columbia is now a publicly traded parent company of various outdoor brands.

You're right about Patagonia's footwear. I found a link http://www.wolverineworldwide.com/main_history.asp

You're also right about Big Agnes, but they're a very small company. Only 3 full time and 20 part time employees.

A little more info about Gregory's past ownership is at http://www.wildsnow.com/2989/black-diamond-equipment-to-go-public-and-merge-gregory-mountain-products/#comments

Funny picture!

It's the dude on the right. I found it under Google Images.

I think he is wearing an official James Bond watch. Who needs a watch with a built in compass when you can afford a watch with a built in laser cutter???

LOL

Lawson, you inspired me. I googled the new Executive Chairman of the parent company of Black Diamond. What came up in a blog was: “Warren B. Kanders with his wife. This [individual’s] company can’t produce enough armor-upgraded humvees to keep the troops safe but has lobbied aggressively for an exclusive contract.”

It’s a story that I’d heard about from the media, and now I know who was responsible. The rant continues at this blog. Yay for corporate greed!

It's just a limited edition omega watch…
some more brands that are self owned

feathered friends

western mountaineering

Mont-bell?

Pacific outdoor equipment

granite gear

golite (I think only the shoes are owned by timberland)

Icebreaker is still owned by Jeremey moon too.

nvm golite is owned by timberland

I was talking about the "movie version" not the "limited edition".. You know the one that cut through the train floor.

sorry, they new bond films lack the lazer watch, and I haven't seen an old one in a while, he does look like a D-bag though

I saw that he was the owner of Armor Holdings Inc when I was looking him up.. Hes a Warmonger. He purchased Black Diamond and Gregory so he could supply to the military…

"Warren B. Kanders with his wife. This [individual's] company can't produce enough armor-upgraded humvees to keep the troops safe but has lobbied aggressively for an exclusive contract."

Great. I guess this means that Black Diamond cams will now hold falls approximately half the time.

This blows.

Kanders looks a little [comment removed].

The Goat says that Osprey got acquired too.

http://thegoat.backcountry.com/2010/05/11/black-diamond-goes-public/

Here's a local news article on the Gregory part of the acquistion.

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/11/2741347/sacramento-backpack-maker-is-sold.html

"…fourth ownership change in six years."

Going forward their task will be simple: "Earn money or die." What could possibly go wrong?

Rick

This was posted over on rockclimbing.com today by a guy called sosure and it seems very astute:

This is not a story of Peter Metcalf accessing capital markets in order to further grow the BDEL business, its the story of Duff, Metcalf, and the original Choinard buyout group selling out and Warrren Kanders taking over. So who is Warren Kanders?

Warren Kanders is your quintessential cigar-chomping, boarding school/ivy groomed, trophy wife brandishing, fat, republican-douchebag capitalist-pig. His previous big score was a military contractor called Armour Holdings. With his business partner, Robert Schiller, Kanders built Armour through a series of acquisitions beginning in 1996 and sold it off in July 2007 to BAE, a much larger military contractor. This sale was right about the time that the DOJ and military began investigating a handful of armour providers for providing defective body armour to the military. Eventually Armour (by that time owned by BAE) paid some hefty fines for violations of the false claims act. Soldiers got shortchanged (maybe fatally?); Warren Kanders got rich.

Amongst Armour's many assets was Gregory, which BAE had no use for, so it sold it back to Kanders and Schiller. Now Kanders has always had more than one card in the game: in addition to controlling Armour, he controll(ed)(s) a few "blank check" companies. These are companies that are publicly listed but which have no operating assets and provide "shells" typically used to quickly bring a private company public. Clarus, 30% owned by Kanders prior to the transaction, is one such "blank check." Kanders/Clarus is buying BDEL for $90 million cash and buying Gregory for $22.5 million in Clarus stock at $6 and $22.5 million in Clarus debt. Supposedly the BDEL executives who are receiving employment agreements with Clarus are going to use some of their cash to buy stock at $6, but the only definitive mention of this in the SEC filing is that Metcalf is receiving options to buy 75,000 shares at $6.00 per share which will vest in three installments in 2012-14. Even assuming Metcalf purchases and retains all 75K shares, this is a trivial amount of stock compared to Kanders position of between 5.1 and 7 million shares immediately post acquisition (his percent interest in Gregory is unclear). Another way to think of the transaction is that Kanders is trading 100% of crappy little Gregory for a 30+% interest in and control over BDEL.

With 30+% of the company, Kanders will be, by far, the largest shareholder (possibly also the fattest) and he's staying on as Executive Chairman to protect his assets (and his business partner Schiller is staying on as Executive Vice-Chairman). Make no mistake, Metcalf works for Kanders and Kanders is in business to make money, lots of it, mostly by acquiring and flipping assets within 10 years (before the negligence or fraud suits get filed). His track record on safety?, his apparent interest in anyone's welfare other than his own?…. apparently not so great.

As for me: I think Kanders will make a lot of money in this deal; I think people who invest with Kanders will make some money, but a lot less than Kanders; but on the product side: no way in hell will you catch me buying safety equipment from a Wall Street robber baron.
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Here's a nice little blurb about how Kanders used lobbying and political connections to maintain his status as the sole company permitted to armour Humvees (resulting in a shortage of armoured Humvees and a surplus of dead soldiers in Iraq in the mid-2000s)
http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/archives/2005/06/
and here:
http://www.nytimes.com/….html?pagewanted=all

Oh yeah and on the subject of whether BDEL was "employee owned", Duff and Metcalf each owned in excess of 10,000 shares of the company. The next ranking officer, Robert Peay, BDEL's CFO, (who was not part of the original Choinard Equipment buyout group) owned only 263. The other named principal stockholders were "Jaeggi, Ritchie, Grover, Carlson, McCall, Bowers, Bancroft, Cranor, (Michael) Metcalf, and Sachika" — I believe they are mostly original investors, not ESOP employees.

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Yes, if you purchase shares of Clarus you will eventually own an equal number of shares of the proposed new Black Diamond company when the name change is effected. This assumes the merger transaction is consummated as the management and principal shareholders of both companies expect it to be by June 30. At that time or shortly thereafter, your Clarus shares would be renamed Black Diamond and listed on a national exchange. As a reminder though, at this point, investing at $6 represents a expression of absolute faith in the good intentions of Warren Kanders. He's selling Gregory to Clarus for half shares at $6 and half debt. The BDEL people aren't selling for a mixture of new stock and cash, or new stock and new debt, or any securities of the new company whatsoever, they are selling for hard cash only. In other words, as an investor group, the BDEL people are expressing no confidence whatsoever in the future of the combined entity. Were they to even sell part of their interests for shares, they could reduce their immediate tax burden and capitalize on the future growth of the company if its current price is "low" or if they believe Kanders has the ability to grow it successfully. They are doing no such thing.

Also, if you invest today you are doing so knowing only this: the combined revenues of the new entity (should the transaction be concluded) will be roughly $113mm, and its valuation at least $152. Until the merger documents with consolidated financials are publicly filed you have no idea how much debt either Black Diamond or Gregory hold. Black Diamond may be profitable, but they owe money to Zions Bancshares and to Credit Suisse. Their interest burden may be sopping up most of that profit. They may be selling now because they have to, not because they want to. You just won't know until the merger documents are filed…..

To me, this looks like corporate raider Ron Perelman buying camping products company Coleman in the 90s. That didn't go so well in the long run for Coleman Shareholders or Coleman's products. In addiition to looking a lot like a heavier-set version of Perelman, Kanders business used to include installing the armor plating on Humvee trucks, which were made by Ron Perelman's AM General; I wonder if they golf together.

Remember, the people who do this sort of thing (mergers and acquisitions) do it with enormous ferocity and for their own benefit, not the public's. Buyer beware.

Well Put. Plus its a $6.00 pink sheet stock… aka penny stock.. If Bdel and Gregory wanted capital they should of gone public themselves (Jim Koch style at Boston Beer Co.)not by selling out to a Warmonger. As my grandpa always use to say, never trust a man with a clean desk.

Funny, all I got out of that was that I'm surprised that there are no cigar-chomping, boarding school/ivy groomed, trophy wife brandishing, fat, DEMOCRAT-douchebag capitalist-pigs. Of course, having worked in the business world, I know that the parties run 50-50 amongst douchebags.

>>Of course, having worked in the business world, I know that the parties run 50-50 amongst [individuals].

That's pretty generous Joe. Personally, I can't distinguish between Repubs and Dems so well anymore. I'd say the proper ratio is more like 99-99.

In any case, the bottom line is that this ain't good news.