Hornby buys Airfix and Humbrol paints

"Dragon Heart" wrote

The current Hornby boss came to them from Humbrol, and presumably has a good insight into the business.

Good point, John.

"Jeff" wrote (with correction to £1.4m)

That's good news. £2.6m sounds like a snip for such an "iconic brand".

Are we not missing a vital point here ? We are refering to Profit ? What about what they have in the bank account already ? Either that or you have a loan ? Or are we not talking visiting Mr Bank manager at Barclays here anymore ?

I was listening to Radio 2 tonight, the Chris Evans show (stuart Mach??? something) and the MD of Hornby was on talking about the airfix take over.

What he said was:-

1. Go for Movie tie ups like they have done with harry potter train sets. This gets the junior market
2. Get the mature market with quality collector items.
3. Keep nostalgia market by keeping existing lines rolling.

I think if you go to the BBC web site you can replay the broadcast.

Sounds like he had it worked out before they bought.

As if Airfis hadn't been doing movie tie-ins long before Hornby.

Zero chance. Airfix would have to retool its entire range to compete with modern rivals.

Only if they are at reasonable prices. A lot of Airfix' back catalogue is ludicrously overpriced for what it is. £75 for a 1/24th scale aircraft anyone?

(kim)

production to

remodelling.

really after,

train sets.

Your point being what, it depends on what movies and how it's done, Star Wars type tie-ins leave little option for future development, anyone for a model of Hogswart School (or what ever it's called, not being the slightest bit interested in Harry P...!) in either 2 or 4mm scale?

compete with

Depends on what they mean by 'collectors items', I would buy both the original Saturn V Apollo model and the Luna module - if nothing else it would allow me to finally build and paint them correctly and have a dammed good time reminiscing about those heady days of the very late 1960's early 1970's whilst building them!

catalogue is

aircraft

Kim, what don't you understand about that being then and the now being what Hornby do, are you seriously suggesting that Hornby will just carry on were the Humbrol management left off?!...

MartinS wrote: "John Turner" wrote: "Dragon Heart" wrote

The big questions are " who else would have taken these parts of the group off the administrator AND have Hornby the right experience and spare cash to develop the brands ? "

The current Hornby boss came to them from Humbrol, and presumably has a good insight into the business.

Good point, John.

Yes ! but the Humbrol group are now in administration !!!!!

The question to ask then is " why did he leave ? "

Let's just hope the acquisition is a step in the right direction.

Hope they do with the paints, I just learned how to mix a nice LMS red with them.

Simon

If he was forced out then will be a fun time saying hello to his former colleagues - "Do come in, and its good bye to you !"

Simon

messagenews:45544503$0$1349$ snipped-for-privacy@reader.greatnowhere.com...

As I read about the failure of Airfix/Humbrol, it was caused by the manufacturer of the Airfix kits (Heller) going into receivership and failing to deliver product to Airfix. That would suggest that Airfix/Humbrol was (still) a going concern.

I should bloody well hope so!

I suggest you listen to the broadcast.

He also said he wanted to attract the junior market by making kits easier to build to compete with the short attention span in the playstation age. i.e. build in 2 hours rather than 2 days. I know airfix tried this in the past.

It's worked for Hornby? Their profits are good. You don't have to retool everything at once.

He did say they would move production to a low cost base country. China?

No mention of moulds though.

He also managed a very nice plug for the new digital scalextric sets, six cars on the same track. I wonder how that works?

The down side now is my wife has told me to stop buying kits as there WILL be more made in the future. :-)

stu

Yes, but you need to consider why they went into administration, apart from placing all their eggs in one basket (tooling wise) they didn't do much wrong - they were forced into administration due to another company going bust first.

"Greg Procter" wrote

Could Heller's problems not have been caused by their customers failing to pay them? I'm not suggesting that was the case, but things are not always as cut and dried as you might initially think.

John.

failing to

Indeed, but that doesn't mean that it was Humbrol who defaulted, Heller supplied other companies to AIUI.

"Jerry" wrote

I never suggested otherwise Jerry.

John.

Same way it does in railways --- DCC

Yes, but how does one car over-take another, which is after all the point of scalextric!

Beg to differ, in the context that of the message you replied to that is most certainly the impression you gave even if you didn't intend to.