Revell Under New Management after Hobbico Bankruptcy

[Navy Bird]

6 hours ago, Caerbannog said:

I also think this is a typo and Round2 is the company in question.

 

I thought that it might be a typo at first, but the auction transcript has several handwritten corrections. If this was a mistake, I suspect that it would have been corrected too.

 

There are several companies in the US (and likely elsewhere) called Round 3 LLC, and none of them have anything to do with the hobby industry. I don't think it's any of them - I think Round2 formed a new legal entity called Round 3 and are using it during the bidding process. They could even operate it as a separate business, insulating their other companies. But, pure speculation on my part.

 

Round2 is a good home for the Revell US business, with its emphasis on automotive and sci-fi models. Not so sure about Revell GmbH. If I recall correctly, a management buyout in 2006 removed Revell of Germany from Revell/Monogram who owned them at the time. Maybe another management buyout could save them from Hobbico. I never quite understood why they sold to Hobbico in 2012 in the first place. Distribution channels and access to R/C products maybe?

 

Cheers,

Bill

[tempestfan]

3 hours ago, Caerbannog said:

AFAIK Hobbico bought Revell AG completely - 100%. So as a first step Revell AG is in the same trouble as all other Hobbico brands. But being maybe a better part of the Hobbico (I tink so - they have a market share of 77% here in Germany, though I do not know how huge that is compared to other markets in the world) cake they may be lucky and find a new investor who let them do their business. And they live happily ever after...

Well in fact before Hobbico they lost turnover each year according to Wikipedia they made 6,4 million Euro in 2005 and "just" 36,8 million Euro in 2013. Hobbico bought them in 2012. Two years later Revell AG made aplus of 18,9 % to 45,36 million Euro (I think due to new product ranges like R/C, etc.). They do not say anything of how much Hobbico is involved in this but it shows that a company can grow with an investor ;-)

Keep fingers crossed.

They did not buy Revell AG, IIRC they did a Formwechsel during the course of the MBO, but I'm not sure whether they initially reverted to GmbH & Co.KG or directly to current GmbH. Ahhh, legal details... There's a "4" missing for the 2005 turnover, BTW. As there is a Hobbico GmbH in Germany, I am not sure whether the R/C sales actually count into Revell's turnover, even if much seems to be branded as such. And how much of the grow in turnover is due to the rather massive price increases of recent years is anyone's guess. As a yardstick, the old ex Heller Vampire bought (presumably) cheaply off Lodela retails at RRP 15 €, or even 20 ? Though they are of course not worse than the competition...  

36 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

 

I thought that it might be a typo at first, but the auction transcript has several handwritten corrections. If this was a mistake, I suspect that it would have been corrected too.

 

There are several companies in the US (and likely elsewhere) called Round 3 LLC, and none of them have anything to do with the hobby industry. I don't think it's any of them - I think Round2 formed a new legal entity called Round 3 and are using it during the bidding process. They could even operate it as a separate business, insulating their other companies. But, pure speculation on my part.

 

Round2 is a good home for the Revell US business, with its emphasis on automotive and sci-fi models. Not so sure about Revell GmbH. If I recall correctly, a management buyout in 2006 removed Revell of Germany from Revell/Monogram who owned them at the time. Maybe another management buyout could save them from Hobbico. I never quite understood why they sold to Hobbico in 2012 in the first place. Distribution channels and access to R/C products maybe?

 

Cheers,

Bill

That would be a very logical explanation I also thought about. This would probably give endless possibilities of having intercompany agreements, as a side effect.

 

I have no background info on the 2012 deal but it seems reasonable that Hobbico wanted access to Revell's distribution channels in Europe, and made an offer the shareholders couldn't resist. If Round3 is actually connected with R2, a buyout by R3 may in fact be good for Revell GmbH, as that would give Revell access to an (admittedly mostly prehistoric) tool bank, and probably/hopefully the US management would leave them operate with a high degree of independence, as that worked very well in the past. Hey, the Revell catalogue consisted of 50 % Lindberg 30 years ago, so why not encore une fois

[Caerbannog]

23 hours ago, tempestfan said:

(...) As a yardstick, the old ex Heller Vampire bought (presumably) cheaply off Lodela retails at RRP 15 €, or even 20 ? Though they are of course not worse than the competition...  

(...)

You mean the Vampire F Mk.3 in 1:72? If so it is not the Heller kit but from Special Hobby.

[PhantomBigStu]

Not been picked up but anyone noticed the box of the reissue of the retooled eurofighter and the parts count indicated far fewer (presumably ommitted weapons) yet for a slight increase over the first issue of £19.99 vs £16.99......

[tempestfan]

38 minutes ago, Caerbannog said:

You mean the Vampire F Mk.3 in 1:72? If so it is not the Heller kit but from Special Hobby.

No, #3993, the Vampire 5 which is ex Heller. However checking the review at IPMS, it’s a bit less recent than I thought.

[robc]

The reissued Typhoon kits (03952 & 03900) both have the same set of sprues in the box.

The 'RAF' version has a lower parts count, as being a display aircraft, only the fuselage centre pylon is used

for the fuel tank.

 

Rob

[Albeback52]

38 minutes ago, PhantomBigStu said:

Not been picked up but anyone noticed the box of the reissue of the retooled eurofighter and the parts count indicated far fewer (presumably ommitted weapons) yet for a slight increase over the first issue of £19.99 vs £16.99......

So, that's about 20% less kit for about 20% more money? Think I will pass on that!

 

Allan

[PhantomBigStu]

7 minutes ago, robc said:

The reissued Typhoon kits (03952 & 03900) both have the same set of sprues in the box.

The 'RAF' version has a lower parts count, as being a display aircraft, only the fuselage centre pylon is used

for the fuel tank.

 

Rob

 

Is that confirmed?, revell haven't turned the sprues off (like they have done in the past with kits) If so I retract the comment

[gavingav1]

25 minutes ago, PhantomBigStu said:

 

Is that confirmed?, revell haven't turned the sprues off (like they have done in the past with kits) If so I retract the comment

The centre line tank is on the weapons sprue so they have to include the entire sprue to include the tank - full weapons sprue seen on this kit preview - http://www.themodellingnews.com/2018/03/revell-of-germany-kits-built-up-on.html#more

Edited April 5, 2018 by gavingav1

[PhantomBigStu]

2 minutes ago, gavingav said:

The centre line tank is on the weapons sprue so they have to include the entire sprue to include the tank - full weapons sprue seen on this kit preview - http://www.themodellingnews.com/2018/03/revell-of-germany-kits-built-up-on.html#more

 

I see, having built the old boxing yesterday, yep tats the same set of sprues, so discount that, its the same kit for £3 more

[Graham Boak]

You guys have heard about the exchange rate?  It could be exactly the same price in Euros and it would still cost us more.  

[gavingav1]

57 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

You guys have heard about the exchange rate?  It could be exactly the same price in Euros and it would still cost us more.  

Funny thing is we see kit prices rise constantly from the exchange rate, especially kits from the far east but i have yet to see kits drop in price when certain stock markets crash , true story .

[Caerbannog]

In the German Revell Online shop both EF-2000 kits cost 19,99 Euro. So I guess this is the suggested retail price. What the vendors make of it is a different matter.

[Branky]

There is indeed a price increase on the RRP of the Revell kits on Mainland Europe but the Airfix retail prices are soaring up too  When The Vampire T11 came out in 2013 it had a retail price of euro 6,95. The reissue for 2018 is now slated to be Euro 12,95.   That is almost 100% The Blenheim went from Euro 15,95 in 2015 to Euro 22,95 now which is about 40% increase... And that with an interesting exhange rate...  

[Mike]

Can we keep on topic please?  The price of one kit isn't relevant to the future of Revell, in particular the DE part that most of us are interested in as they were the producer of new toolings.

[tony.t]

 

The parts count on the lid is based on the used parts. The unused parts are usually blanked off on the instruction sprue layouts and omitted from the total count.

 

Tony

[TheVoidDragon]

Does Hobbico taking over RoG a few years ago have anything to do with what seems to be them primarily using the licenses (Star Wars, Halo etc) they get to create things closer to toys rather than model kits now? I know many years ago (here in the UK at least) there were Star Wars Easy-kits, but they weren't on the same level as toys. Using unique settings for mostly "build & play" stuff ith flashing lights and sounds and all that seems like a huge waste of potential to me, but i'm not sure if there's an actual explanation for it. 

Edited April 7, 2018 by TheVoidDragon

[stevehnz]

I got an email earlier today from Omnimodels in the US who were Hobbico but now Horizon(?). Looks like I'll be getting Horizon emails too now unless I opt out. I do just hope that Omni keep their good export shipping prices, they've been useful in the past.

Steve.

[Bedders]

Does anyone know if there's a date for the 1/72 scale Hunter reissue?

 

Justin

 

 

[FZ6]

16 minutes ago, Bedders said:

Does anyone know if there's a date for the 1/72 scale Hunter reissue?

 

Justin

 

 

Hi Justin,

 

It's out now

 

Regards,

 

Mark

[FZ6]

I got the an email from Tower Hobbies who were owned by Hobbico saying they'd been bought out by Horizon Hobby and I could opt out of having my information transferred over.

[Bedders]

1 hour ago, FZ6 said:

Hi Justin,

 

It's out now

 

Regards,

 

Mark

Thanks - I must have dozed off at some point!

 

Justin

[modelldoc]

The date for the hearing is now on Friday, 13th.

 

modelldoc

[Procopius]

4 hours ago, modelldoc said:

The date for the hearing is now on Friday, 13th.

Great omen.

[VMA131Marine]

There is some interesting information about the Revell sale on YouTube search for "the stash report" and watch the April 2nd video. There are apparently two bidders for the Revell lots: 

1 Revell Germany management has bid to buy Revell Germany 

2 Another entity has bid to buy Revell USA and Revell Germany and perhaps Hobbico's mass distribution arm United Model Distributors. 

These bids are clearly overlapping as to what would be acquired and this is the cause of the delay in announcing a buyer. Having Revell Germany be an independent company again would be a good outcome but that might result in the buyer for Revell US backing out if they can't get both Revells.