Harley-Davidson shutting down Buell

[The_AirHawk]

Almost forgot this'n:

Harley paying dealers $5,000 for every Buell sold - Hell For Leather

[seruzawa]

Originally Posted by The_AirHawk

"Buell revenue was $134.9 million in 2008 and $59.4 million in 2009 year-to-date. Capital expenditures related to Buell were $6.6 million in 2008 and $3.8 million September year-to-date."

"Well, we just figgerd, 'what the hey - we hate the fukkers anyway - just git fukkin' rid of them rice-wannabe-fukkin' Bools'............"

Harley didn't calculate savings before killing Buell, hopes business as usual leads to financial recovery - Hell For Leather

Have you ever read such gold-plated BS as that HD idiot's driveling about 'leveraging" and "playing up our unique heritage" or whatever the fock that moron was saying?

I like that banker's comment about HD selling Hondas.

[pdad13]

Originally Posted by seruzawa

Have you ever read such gold-plated BS as that HD idiot's driveling about 'leveraging" and "playing up our unique heritage" or whatever the fock that moron was saying?

I like that banker's comment about HD selling Hondas.

F*ck, it's worse than I thought.

I (almost) completely agree with HFL.

I wouldn't take H-D's financial reporting as gospel, but it indicates that Buell was a minor problem at worst. H-D is getting killed by its financing division and flagging sales of H-D motorcycles and merchandise, not Buell and MV.

They have no cash, other than what they've borrowed. (What the f*ck did they do with it the last 20 years?) They can't afford to support three brands, so they're shoring up the most valuable one, even though it's probably suffering the most. No brainer, really, at least for the short term.

They better hope that the economy rebounds relatively soon and there core customers start buying bikes again or they're in deep ****e. They don't seem to have the resources to do much else.

[acecycleins]

Originally Posted by pdad13

F*ck, it's worse than I thought.

I (almost) completely agree with HFL.

I wouldn't take H-D's financial reporting as gospel, but it indicates that Buell was a minor problem at worst. H-D is getting killed by its financing division and flagging sales of H-D motorcycles and merchandise, not Buell and MV.

They have no cash, other than what they've borrowed. (What the f*ck did they do with it the last 20 years?) They can't afford to support three brands, so they're shoring up the most valuable one, even though it's probably suffering the most. No brainer, really, at least for the short term.

They better hope that the economy rebounds relatively soon and there core customers start buying bikes again or they're in deep ****e. They don't seem to have the resources to do much else.

HD Credit (Eaglemark) would regularly buy paper on people with credit scores in the middle 500s. Well, defaults killed them. Defaults killed Buell and MV actually, but you get the point.
Buell could have easily survived the storm of this financial tailspin recession if they were a stand alone company. They weren't actually losing money. They were more or less breaking even. Development would stall for a while, but with sales better than that of Victory I think that they could have lived on.
OR- HD didn't want Buell to team up with Polaris if they cut him loose. That would be one hell of a twist, huh?

[Kenneth_Moore]

Harley has a clear strategy to change the way it does business and return to profitability. "We are intent on extending the Harley-Davidson brand by leveraging our unique strengths," says CEO Keith Wandell. "What do we mean by extending the brand and leveraging our unique strengths? Well, the Harley-Davidson brand is one of the most powerful brands in the world but we also have great conviction that there is much more that we can do to tap in to the power of that brand and expand it even further."

We asked a former Wall Street banker with significant experience financing large motorcycle companies, what he thought of Harley's strategy. "'Leveraging the brand' is utterly ridiculous. People have the brand tattooed on their ****ing flesh, how much more leveraged are you gonna get?"

Bwah hahahahahaha!

[Kenneth_Moore]

Originally Posted by acecycleins

HD Credit (Eaglemark) would regularly buy paper on people with credit scores in the middle 500s.

You should have seen some the crap I pushed off on Eaglemark Bank. It was practically criminal. Ok, maybe it was criminal, I don't know...

[sarnali2]

What a bunch of sh*t for brains. We're witnessing the end of American capitalism and the funny part is the ass holes are doing it to themselves.

Boeing, Harley, GM, Chrysler..all of them are being ass-raped by the same capitalist pigs who are grossly overpaid "best and brightest" that ran our banking institutions into the ground, aided and abetted by our ****** in Chief that handed out 700 billion dollar Christmas presents to them and is getting ready to hand over our sovereignty to a bunch of c*ck breath euro commies. Mao was right all along, we sold them the very rope they'll hang us with

Time to start the revolution, Lock and Load motherf*cker

[Kenneth_Moore]

According to the same article, HD is paying 15% interest for hundreds of millions of dollars in loans. That is the kind of rate you expect on a credit card, not a frikin business loan when the Prime Rate is under 5%. Much of their loans are government backed or directly from the government; the equivalent of a "bailout" without all the publicity.

It's astonishing to me that a company that was practically printing money for two decades had the fiscal irresponsibility to be in such dire straits after only two years economic downturn. I suspect they bonused themselves right out of stability. They blew what, $100M on MV? At the same time they're leveraged up the ass with high cost loans? My kid does a better job managing his allowance.