We are going private, period. There will be a Private Equity takeover soon. The PE guys will pay a small premium to the shareholders (they will wait for our stock price to drop even more) and will be taking the company off the market. Once they move in, they will go after cash flow and will load us with debt on top of sucking all cash dry. They will distribute debt as payments to themselves to compensate for the money spent on the purchase, they will keep cash generating products and units and will cut everyone else. The blood bath will be huge and this time the executives will be the first one to go, followed by all echelons of higher paid resources. The company will be run by a part time Private Equity partner and a 28 year old recent Stanford or Harvard MBA graduate - mark my words here. A skeleton crew will be kept, the products that are making profits will be maintained, all other will just be abandoned. This order will be around for 3 to 5 years at which point Mattel will be, let's say 25% of what is now. At that point, we'll be profitable but much smaller and debt loaded business, the private equity guys will pull some strings and sell us to a competitor or a company that wants to expand in our direction. Keep in mind this is the best case scenario, very painful, but still a very good outcome. The alternative is a slow and painful downsizing and an interrupted exodus of investors. Good luck to all of us, I am out of here w/in next 6 months unless they cut me before I leave on my own.
5 replies (most recent on top)
Is this information based on anything more than pure speculation? Just curious.
Talks are happening since February
Are you making a prediction, or do you know something that's really going to happen?
Yes. This is how Mitt Romney and many others in the private equity firms made their fortunes. Good possibility we are headed this way. Either that or somebody better come up with some good ideas fast.
I worked at MGM, this is kind of what happened over there. They kept 10% of our staff. I work for the government now. Was at MAT for about 6 months as a contractor.