Kader have bought Sander Kan!

This gets more and more convoluted.

My brain hurts!

Sander Kan appear to have gone bankrupt if my reading of the announcement is correct. Where does that leave Hornby? All their products not yet shipped will be handed over to Kader. It looks like we can kiss goodbye to all Hornby's projected new models. Wow! This is bad news for all of us as there is now effectively only one big manufacturer who can fix the prices to suit himself. I don't count the likes of Heljan or ViTrains as serious competition - their product ranges are too small. I'm an etched kit manufacturer. Perhaps I can look forward to selling a lot more kits as RTR prices soar upwards.

Alistair

Not a chance of reading or understanding that document. Would need some simple facts before consider theres a problem for Hornby.

Cheers, Simon

The way I read it Sanda Kan went bust on 10th September and has been run by a receiver in the meantime. There's no reason why the new owners wouldn't continue to supply Hornby albeit at slightly increased cost to recoup earlier losses.

(kim)

"Fred X" wrote

Not just Hornby, but I believe they also produce stuff for the USA market too.

I'd have thought it unlikely that Kader would want to pull the plug on those manufacturers, at least in the short term and anyway, I would imagine that Hornby have water-tight contracts in force, or they should have.

In the longer term it might be Kader's opportunity to increase their own production capabilities, which we know have been somewhat restricted by having to supply many different markets.

John.

[ context keeper; Kadar is the parent company of Bachmann, ]

Other than being in direct competition with their own brands! It's one thing to supply competing companies *within* the parent companies portfolio but another to happily supply a direct competitor. I would suspect that Hornby have been considering their options today, indeed their share price lost about 6% at one point today although it when on to recover slightly, on top of the other issues mentioned in another thread this could really put a spanner in Hornby's plans. The next few weeks could be very interesting, if Kader really wanted to it could totally screw Hornby in the run up to Christmas, blaming it all on problems caused by bankruptcy of Sander Kan, if Hornby have ripped out all their moulding equipment they really might roué the day...

I think you might find that any contracts are worthless, the company (Sander Kan) was bankrupt, Kader will have bought the assets - they might not have bought and existing contracts. The best we can hope is that Hornby own their own tooling...

At the moment, it's all speculation - but it's probably not good news.

I don't know why they would be worried, it's common for a factory/ supplier to be owned by rivals. All the major car makers have bits fitted to the competetors vehicles (traditionaly re-badged, but not so much these days), and it's the same with electronics et al. If anything it could be a good thing - both makes get he best technology and production techniques from both factories. I'll bet Hornby are well aware of what is happening

Cheers Richard

That's exactly the sort of speculation, which rapidly becomes "fact" on the web, that could cause Hornby problems. The fact is that no one outside Hornby knows, and for all we know this could well have been planned well in advance with Hornby being involved all the way- that's where my money would be, but I'd be guessing.

Cheers Richard

Is that the feeling in the Hornby managment's stomachs?

MBQ

It happens all the time, in all sorts of industries.

MBQ

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com said the following on 18/11/2008 09:01:

I was about to say exactly the same. An immediate example in the electronics manufacturing industry:- we supply boards to an OEM. We've been asked to quote for the assembly that these boards go into, as have two other subbies. One of those two subbies has asked us to provide quotes for the boards, so if they win the contract we'll be supplying boards to a direct competitor. That's life, and any sale is better than no sale.

beamends said the following on 18/11/2008 08:10:

Bits? They re-badge whole cars :-) Ford Galaxy/Seat Alhambra/VW Sharan, for instance - all the same car!

But Bachmann don't need to have the any sale, they can survive without Hornby's custom...

Then Hornby should be making a statement to clear this issue up, especially as their share price has been dropping like a roller-coaster in the last 12 months (£260 down to 108 over the last

52wks [1]), unless a statement is made how can anyone be blamed for making and airing their own concerns... [1] URL might line wrap

Very true - the classic, though not quite in the same vein, being the Ford Ka, which at launch was a last-model Fiesta with different body panels - and people paid extra for an old design!

Cheers Richard

Wrong, the Ka needs different (body) jig alignment brackets to the Escort.

The Ford Ka is not more a Fiesta than a Fiesta is a Escort due to sharing a power-train assembly and other standardised (across the company) components!

Yes they would want some Guarantee of income before investing