NOOOO! Thor buys Jayco

[rvrev2]

Just read that Thor has bought Jayco for $576 million. Wall Street Journal article at this address: http://www.wsj.com/articles/thor-industries-to-buy-jayco-for-576-million-1467375874

Jayco was the largest, family owned RV manufacturer in America (if not the world). I was saving money in order to replace my aging Jayco with a new one. Thor has not been portrayed well on these forums, so this brings me great concern.

Seems like all the good manufacturers have gone:
Nuwa (Hitchhiker)no longer manufacturing.
Excel (Peterson Industries) shut down their business.
DRV (bought out)
Teton (shut down their business)


From the article: Jayco will operate as a subsidiary of Thor, with the existing management continuing to lead the business. Derald Bontrager, Jayco’s chief executive, said one of the things the company found “most attractive” about the tie-up was Thor’s decentralized business structure.

[Sport45]

wing_zealot wrote:

camperforlife wrote:
I was surprised when KZ sold to Thor and now Jayco. When these family companies hit the second and especially third generations money seems to out weigh family.

Why work when you got $576M? I could live extremely well on the interest alone and never work a day it my life.

I agree. It's not and shouldn't be about family. Grandpa starts building widgets to make money, not to build widgets. Said widget company prospers and his children grow it into an enterprise. If the enterprise is sold at a price that sets grandchildren for life then grandpa's dreams have been fulfilled.

[wbwood]

BB_TX wrote:
Thor, like so many other very large business entities, gets a bad rap for little more reason than for being so huge and being an easy target.

I doubt there will be any difference other than ownership. Thor also owns Airstream and I haven't read any comments about any drop in quality after that purchase.

Yep,,, and according to the article, the jayco people will continue to run things...

[mgirardo]

According to the "free" article that was posted:

free article wrote:
Thor's subsidiaries function as separate entities and compete against each other in the marketplace, Martin said. That is a benefit for Jayco, which will continue to enjoy the same independence.

I hope that is true. We are in the market for a Destination Trailer and had been looking at Jayco's Bungalow line. We were ready to purchase one, but the Dealer sold the model we liked the day before. Too late for this season to order one, but most likely will for next season.

-Michael

[free_radical]

BB_TX wrote:

wing_zealot wrote:

camperforlife wrote:
I was surprised when KZ sold to Thor and now Jayco. When these family companies hit the second and especially third generations money seems to out weigh family.

Why work when you got $576M? I could live extremely well on the interest alone and never work a day it my life.

Exactly. First generation works hands on to build their business and takes pride in the accomplishments. As it grows, the second generation likely gets involved. If the business grows really large, then it moves away from being a family business and into the corporate world. By the time the third generation comes along there is little of the "family business" left in it and they are ready to reap the benefits of the previous generation's work.

And the third generation having too much money loses all ambition to work and ends up spending it all gambling drinking etc..and dying poor.
.
Chinese have a good saying for this...from shorts sleeves to short sleeves in three generations..

Give your children only so much money they can do anything,but never so much they need to do nothing..

[down_home]

some monopoly busting has to be done, otherwise we will end up with two corporations for RVs, and quality will be too costly or unavailable, as well as choices.

[mkc]

tatest wrote:

Also unlikely that it is a cash buyout, more likely the sellers will become partial owners of Thor.

Nope - all cash.

2 year non-compete clause for key personnel

http://ir.thorindustries.com/acquisition-of-jayco/Acquisition-QA-/default.aspx

[WE_CAMP2]

Not saying Thor is bad, but I hate to see this happening. Thor has been slowly buying up the competition. Once any company has no serious competition it will surely be bad for the consumer, which is us 😞

[PawPaw_n_Gram]

camperforlife wrote:
I was surprised when KZ sold to Thor and now Jayco. When these family companies hit the second and especially third generations money seems to out weigh family.

Depending upon how much planning for a multi-million dollar/ billion dollar business the first generation did when the company was young, turning over ownership to a third generation may be impossible. The capital gains taxes could leave the company with no working cash.

I would be very surprised if the federal government didn't end up with 25-30% of that 576 million.

It is very hard to transfer ownership of a non-public company to children/ grandchildren.

Another issue is the number of people involved. One company I saw go from a third generation involved to sold to a public traded company back in the early 90s - did so because the original two brothers, their seven children - the company didn't have appropriate roles available for the 23 grandchildren.

The number of people issue is normally more evident in small companies. A nice income for dad and his two sons, might be insufficient for them and six grandchildren families.

That's probably why Leigh Tiffin (Bob's grandson) is now heading up Vanleigh RV - a 5th wheel manufacturer.

[tatest]

Thor has not been entirely "hands off." Not too long ago they merged their FourWinds and Damon into Thor Motorcoach. This was probably for the good, since they eliminated some internal competition with alike product, and introduced new lines like their A and C RUV products.

Thor Motorcoach is still making multiple "brands" of most model lines, like the FourWinds/Citation/Chateau branding FourWinds used to do, and new pairs like Compass/Gemini and Axis/Vegas, but no longer have Damon Daybreaks aimed at the same market as FourWinds Hurricanes.

But generally, they've let Keystone, Dutchmen, Airstream, Crossroads, Cruiser, Heartland, LivinLite, DRV operate on their own. I'm less sure about the ongoing independence of K-Z, and Carriage was one of the companies that essentially disappeared, with the brand names going over Crossroads, with loss of the construction methods that had made Carriage special over the years.

Better chance of survival for a company to be pulled into the Thor group than to be bought by Forest River, which tends more to centralize management and merge production facilities.

Also unlikely that it is a cash buyout, more likely the sellers will become partial owners of Thor. I could see this coming when Jayco had trouble getting Entegra going. A family-held business can have difficulty raising capital for business expansion, and most of the failures of these small, closely-held RV manufacturers have been the result of creditors calling in loans as soon as business gets slow.

[pconroy328]

It's business.
Nothing more, nothing less.

[minnow]

The OP's link requires a subscription to view. Here is a link to another article that is free to view:


Free Article

[DSDP_Don]

I don't think these large companies purposely let quality drop when they buy other companies, but the problem is that they become so big, that it's difficult to manage all of the operations. Rules and guidelines have to be standardized along with pay, hiring practices, etc. Once you do that, the quality employees are grouped in with the new hires and there is no longer any incentive to do good work.

Camping World is a prime example of this. They don't purposely do bad work, they just don't have any qualified technicians or can't keep them once they get experience.

[nma33]

I was at Jayco end of May, went into the store and the pride of Jayco being a family business was all over, the staff talked a lot about it too, Guess that will all change now. Glad I bough mine before changes occur, Not saying they will be bad, but it is possible. I sure hope they keep their amazing customer service folks I dealt with. An interesting story, that was told with pride, During the crash of 2007, Jayco shut down Starcraft temporarily, They placed every single employee of Starcraft into other divisions of Jayco until they weathered the storm. This would not happen now.

[BB_TX]

wing_zealot wrote:

camperforlife wrote:
I was surprised when KZ sold to Thor and now Jayco. When these family companies hit the second and especially third generations money seems to out weigh family.

Why work when you got $576M? I could live extremely well on the interest alone and never work a day it my life.

Exactly. First generation works hands on to build their business and takes pride in the accomplishments. As it grows, the second generation likely gets involved. If the business grows really large, then it moves away from being a family business and into the corporate world. By the time the third generation comes along there is little of the "family business" left in it and they are ready to reap the benefits of the previous generation's work.