travelnutz wrote:
The references to companies moving out of California or elsewhere are almost solely due to the costs incurred by having your company in such state! The Business Climate! Has absolutely nothing to do with: "gross domestic product per capita"
The point being that people have been complaining about the business climate in California for at least 40 years. Yet there are more businesses in California than ever, that are more profitable than ever. From your assessment I'd have thought they would have all left long ago, and California would look more like - well, Michigan or Kentucky.
An RV manufacturer like Lance is pretty basic. Floorspace, materials, labor. There isn't any secret magic in it, no tooling or equipment to speak of, no IP. It would all be in China right now if the transportation costs were lower. The biggest risk to Lance or any other manufacturer is actually forecasting as the market is notoriously fickle. The biggest improvement they could make would be substantially shortening their pipeline, supply chain -> finished product.
My only direct experience with a manufacturer's buyout is the Safari I owned. The year before I bought it, Monaco bought Safari. It wasn't the same product. Then Monaco went Tango Uniform. And they were operating in the business friendly climate of central Oregon.