Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

[sickwilly]

More Brunswick reaction to the economy, this time hitting home over on the east side of Tennessee.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-biz-brunswick-sea-ray-job-cuts-jan06,0,4300440.story

I hope they don't have to keep the plant mothballed too long.

On the flip side, their stock is enjoyed a nice several day run, just shy of doubling since I picked up some for the kids.

 

[kyle f]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

Its bad all over. Even the Toyota Vehicle Plants took an extra week of shut down over the new year. Earlier last year, they shut down the Tundra plant for 3 months.

 

[superpop]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

It's not all bad, I just picked up a 2 year old Chaparral with 50 hours on it for half what it costed two years ago when it was new. Great deals can be had on boats right now.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

several months ago Brunswick, announced they were closing 27 plants, this is just one of them. according to this, they have closed 18 so far.

 

[NSBCraig]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

Boston Whaler let a bunch off the Friday before Christmas

 

[sickwilly]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

Why do they do it the week before Christmas -- why not wait one week and do it effective jan 1?

 

[5150abf]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

I am with Bennington and we had the week of thanksgiving off then another week at Christmas and I was told today we would be getting "more than one week off" in the next couple weeks so it is really ugly.

The glass side, Azure was told to call in the first of Feburary to see if/when they work again.

What stinks about it is we have 700 orders but none of our dealers can get financing to go through with the order so if money got freed up we would be fine.

I was really hoping we could ride it out as we are one of very few companies still running boats on a regular basis, we have only had 3 extra weeks off so far.

I have been in the buisness for 22 years and have talked to people that have been in since the 60s and no one can remember it ever being close to this bad.

Fishing buddy owns a body shop so hopefully the weather gets really bad and he drums up some buisness so I can help out there.

 

[chiefalen]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

It ain't even started yet wait and see. The marine industry is in for some really bad times, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Some of it could have been avoided if some forward thinking folks were in charge. And those guys in charge still don't want to listen.

Oh well.

 

[NCLakeboater]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

5150abf: Sorry to hear about your situation at Bennington. I hope your company and the industry at large can ride it out until better times return.

 

[NSBCraig]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

Why do they do it the week before Christmas -- why not wait one week and do it effective jan 1?

Not sure.

Wasn't that a nice present, hey now that you spent all your money on the holidays guess what?

All the small shops went under around here this year too.

The only one I don't think has out and out let people go yet is Everglades.

Not good lots of people around here work for boat companies.

 

[oops!]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

we have been hit pretty hard here in canada.....i live in a area that has several large mfgrs....including campion........when the crunch hit.....a lot of the smaller places.....(5 boats a week) subcontracterd to the larger shops to build thier boats for them. i e svfarah was now being built at campion.....

i heard the other day that our local government was working with the larger builders to keep them open....

im afaraid the boat building industry is the tip of the iceberg.......(i dont want to turn this in to a ecnomic thread)........but i think that if somthing drastic doesnt happen soon.....it will get really bad....for every sector......including food!

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

When a company does a layoff, plant closing, or whatever they happen to call it, depends on when their fiscal year ends. If it ends Dec 31 of each year and depending on their current tax situation, they may or may not want to do it during that year (before Dec 31). Since 2008 was a bad year for most manufacturers, it makes sense to do it before Dec. 31. So they can use the associated costs in their tax accounting.

 

[NSBCraig]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

Yeah I'm sure they have many reasons.

They are a great company that people take pride in working for.

 

[5150abf]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

Had another plant meeting yesterday and the President/CEO/ Head Banana said that 100% of the problem is that no one will finance the dealers even though we gaurantee the loan.

In the marine industry there are 2 main finance sources, Textron and GE, Textron decided to get out of the leisure products buisness entirely and GE is having there own problems and have locked up most loans.

So we have 500 orders and the dealers want the boats but no one will underwrite their floor plan so as soon as credit frees up we and others are fine.

When this finally breaks we will be in a really good position, when this all started 1 1/2 years ago there were something like 52 companies building pontoon boats, I would be suprised if half of those are still around.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

to put it bluntly, this really sucks.

 

[marco-polo]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

So we have 500 orders and the dealers want the boats but no one will underwrite their floor plan so as soon as credit frees up we and others are fine.


Help me understand this please. I recently bought a new boat and the other week stopped to visit the dealer. He was talking about his bank(?) not underwriting his floorplan any longer. What's a floorplan?
(sorry if I sound like a real idiot)

Marco
(Oh, and I am sorry for you guys trying to hang on in this industry in today's economy; I hope things pick up very soon)

 

[OldePharte]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

It is the financing provided a business to acquire inventory with the loan being retired as the items are sold.

So those boats sitting on the "floor" in the dealer's office are financed through loans. No floor plan financing, no boat/car models to look at.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

no consumer financing, the dealer can not move his inventory, so his interest on his floor plan keeps growing. when he finally finds a buyer with cash, to buy the boat, the interest has eaten away any profit.

 

[sickwilly]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

Seeing as how GE today (1/23/2009) announced a 44% decrease in profits led by their financial services, I doubt they change anything soon about floor financing. Lets just hope when they do their analysis that marinas and boat dealers were some of the stronger payers.

 

[kaferhaus]

Re: Sea Ray mothballing plant, elliminating jobs

Many dealers here are gone. All that remain are only shadows of what they were only months ago. A few of them have only the owner (who is also playing service manager and parts manager) and a mechanic or two left.

Even the non dealer repair shops are going under as people are not getting their boats repaired. I mean let's face it, boating for 99% of the people on the water is recreation.

Were I in a difficult spot the first things that would go would be the things that don't involve food, shelter and basic transportation.

Even the local bowling alley's are laying people off... but the bars still seem to be doing well.... LOL