FADAL Selling Assets

I saw this on Practical Machinist and thought it would show up here. since I haven't seen anything yet I thought I would post it here:

"FADAL is discontinuing the production of machining centers and has authorized Machinery Network auctions and Infinity Asset Solutions to liquidate its entire inventory of machines and a huge selection of remaining machine components."

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Machine Pricing:
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Spares pricing:

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Best, Steve

Reply to
Garlicdude
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I live 5 blocks from the FADAL facility in Chatsworth. Only a few cars are ever out front anymore. The last few moving trucks were there a few weeks back. Someone mentioned a while back they were transferring manufacturing to the parent company back east. I knew that not to be true as a few of the guys that worked there go to my gym down the street and were not offered any transfer opportunity. That said, a very big shop up in Santa Clarita is ordering big machines like they're going out of style! : )

-- Bill

Reply to
BillT

=========== What does this mean? What impact is this going to have? Causes?

Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

F. George McDuffee wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

They won the race to the bottom?

None unless you own one. C'mon George! Embrace the change! We don't need manufacturing anymore. The government will take care of all of us with money borrowed from China.

Bottom line: the market decided that among the thousands of VMC's available, Fadals weren't worth buying. Probably loads of reasons why that's so.

Reply to
D Murphy

The race was fixed....

Plenty of spare Fadal parts out there and no reason the iron can't be reground and retrofitted.

My take is that Fadal was purchased by a multinational conglomerate ( Mag ) and liquefied with the sole intent and purpose being to stifle competition.

Reply to
Brother Lightfoot

Yep. Just look at what Haas has done with their control in the last

10-12 years. And then look at what Fadal has done with theirs.
Reply to
Joe788

Fadal's with Fanuc controls, drives, and servos are far superior to the machines with MP and old CNC88 controls.

To my knowledge Haas doesn't have anything like Fanuc's HPCC, AICC, or APC, so despite Haas's user friendliness Fadal still won until the plug got pulled.

Reply to
Black Dragon

So how/why did Fadel step on their lolly?

Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

"Brother Lightfoot" wrote in news:w4CdnbNAQsRQORXWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@scnresearch.com:

To what end? They don't do well in that end of the market with any of their brands. So they bought their way in with a company that used to do well and proved that if you can't compete in a market segmnent on your own, you're poor management skills will kill whatever company you buy that was otherwise successful.

I doubt that their plan was to lose the $180 million that G&L paid back in '95 or whenever. And I doubt Mag looked at G&L and thought that it would be worth $631 million to put them out of business. They would have been better off spending that money to put Haas under if their goal was to dominate the US market.

I've come to the conclusion that machine tool companies can't be owned by big conglomorates. Big companies won't invest in R&D, new technologies, and won't keep the cash reserves necessary to carry them through economic downturns.

Reply to
D Murphy

I agree. The problem is 90% of the people buying cheapo machines don't know or care about HPCC, AICC, etc. They like the big color screen, and the shiny stainless steel bezel, and all of the other stuff that Haas controls come with standard.

Reply to
Joe788

nUVZ snipped-for-privacy@scnresearch.com:

Dan, did you see the projected year end results for Mori Seiki?

Reply to
Joe788

======= This has the ring of truth.

Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

Marketing? The other trick is to get a couple of your brand into a shop at any cost. Once in, shops like a consistency with controls.

Think about this: Back in the 1990's (ish..) The machine tool market slowed. Fadal decided to cut back on production and even laid off folks. Haas took the gamble that it was short lived. So they kept up production (without even current sales to back it up) and stored machines all over the plant. When things turned around they offered same day delivery of most any machine! They even cannibalized existing ones to fill orders. That put them on the map. Fadal had to fire up manufacturing and assembly without a full staff. Haas got their foot in the door of a LOT of shops that way. Now, the mystery is how the inventory backlog was supported (remember the time frame and the surrounding controversy of the day). I'm just saying...

-- Bill

Reply to
Bill

And to think, Haas was almost owned by Hurco! after the lawsuit on software infringement.. go figger & Fadal is a nice Aluminum cutting machine.

-- BB's #120 Ashes to ashes Dust to dust If live we will Then die we must

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Reply to
cncmillgil

Joe788 wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@c34g2000pri.googlegroups.com:

No but I loked and found this -

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It looks like they are about $8-1/2 million in the shit which is not too bad for a company of their size.

Reply to
D Murphy

Joe788 wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@l12g2000prg.googlegroups.com:

It's not a problem. It's the reality of the market. So you either figure it out or die. Unless of course you have congress in your pocket. Then you are "too big to fail" or some other bullshit.

There are companies that build good machines and fail and there are companies that build crap and fail. The inverse is also true. If you can't figure out what your good at and how to sell it while making a profit, then you're doomed.

In order to be successful you need to be one of three things; the low unit cost producer, differentiated, or focused on a niche. If you have differntiation in your product you don't have competition. By differentiation, I mean game changing technology, not BS like we have better service. Once you are successful that won't last long. Either your patents will run out or some company will figure a way around them.

If you focus on a niche you need to know and dominate that niche like nobody else. So if you're going to make hole poppers, you need to know every niche that can use one and have expertise in their particular applications.

If you are going to be a low unit cost producer, you need to be able to sell for less money than anyone else while making a profit. That was Fadal's business in a nutshell. The built broad market VMC's and sold them cheap. The problem is that after a couple of leveraged buyouts it wound up being owned by a big company with cost structures and a culture that didn't allow them to sell at a price that was competitive at a profit. So they are dead, or at the very least they are on life support.

Reply to
D Murphy

snipped-for-privacy@c34g2000pri.googlegroups.com:

Dan, take a closer look at the second sentence on page 17. YIKES!

Reply to
Joe788

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Nahh, Haas was never almost owned by Hurco. That 10 million bucks wasn't even a drop in the bucket to Haas.

Reply to
Joe788

Joe788 wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@u5g2000prd.googlegroups.com:

About 38 million USD or 9 1/2 million loss per Q. I'll tell you this, they aren't special. Every MTB is in the shit for the year.

Mori can sell between $170-200 million USD in a normal year. So one normal year could wipe out the loss and maybe even have a little left over for karaoke. But they are a long ways away from having a normal year. Like everyone else they are cutting heads and costs every way possible. I don't see any immediate danger of them going under.

But I'll bet they wish they didn't build their shiny new headquarters out here, and instead stuck it out for a few more years in their old place.

They are going to start building machines either here or in CA soon.

They must like paying taxes.

Reply to
D Murphy

snipped-for-privacy@u5g2000prd.googlegroups.com:

Dan, they lost 388 MILLION dollars, or 34.5 BILLION yen!

I certainly don't see them going under either, I just found the sheer dollar amount of loss staggering. They are a billion dollar company, so even in that sense, so the number is still mind blowing to me, even relative to their gross sales.

Reply to
Joe788

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