Strategy in TECH...
CI coaching business Vital announced this week that well-known industry veteran Lawrence Davis has joined the company as its new VP of Business Development. The company says that this move is “the first step in their growth plan.”
Moody’s Investors Service, one of the nation’s largest credit rating agencies, announced last week that it has raised the credit rating of Guitar Center, the owner of custom integration company Audio Visual Design Group. Guitar Center has struggled for years, finally falling into bankruptcy – from which it emerged about ten months ago in December 2020.
Nice, a global manufacturer of Smart Home, Security, and Home & Building Automation products based in Italy, announced today that it has acquired Nortek Security & Control – purchased from Melrose plc for $285 million. The move expands Nice’s portfolio and strengthens its North American presence.
As I am sure that most readers of this post will know, during CEDIA Expo at the beginning of September, I published a continuously updated post tracking which previously announced exhibitors subsequently made the decision to pull out of the event as the COVID Delta variant raged on. A remarkable realization occurred as I worked on that post, literally speaking with dozens, if not hundreds, of exhibitors and attendees for that event – many of them were confused about who owned the CEDIA Expo!
Melrose PLC, the private equity turnaround expert that purchased the entirety of Nortek back in 2016, unceremoniously let it slip in a bullet point of a report on financial results, that it has found a buyer for the last remaining piece of the Nortek puzzle they have struggled to turn around over the years. Although they did not name the buyer, Melrose says a contract has been signed for a $285 million deal – remarkably low considering all the brands included in this transaction.
Snap One Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SNPO) announced the results of their fiscal second quarter, the period that ended June 25, 2021. This is the first official report to investors for the newly public company, and Snap One executives were excited to talk about all the positive milestones they achieved in the quarter – first and foremost, launching a successful public offering. Aside from a technical glitch in their conference call with analysts, it was all good news from the company.
Moody’s Investors Service, one of the top global credit and bond rating agencies, announced last week that it has raised the credit rating on Wirepath LLC (dba Snap One) based on its successful completion of an initial public offering of shares of the company’s stock. This is good news for Snap One and potential investors.
Last Friday, Amazon founder and now former CEO Jeff Bezos woke up the richest man in the world. He has been the richest man in the world for quite some time now. Yet when he went to bed Friday evening, he was no longer. And the reason that’s so should serve as a warning to you and all of us in the tech biz in 2021.
Emerald Holding, Inc. (NYSE:EEX), owner of the CEDIA Expo show, reported its results for the second quarter of fiscal 2021 confirming that the company lost $46.5 million in the quarter as it continues to struggle with the impact of COVID-19. Clearly, the pandemic slammed the live event and exposition industry and even as coronavirus begins to wane, the industry is finding it difficult to return to normal.
Crestron announced on Monday that it was joining with members of the Bargetzi family to create the Fred Bargetzi Memorial Scholarship, created to honor the memory of the company’s much-beloved and long-time Chief Technology Officer Fred Bargetzi, who passed away in January of this year. The scholarship will be for select students of Bargetzi’s alma mater, the University at Buffalo, and will serve both “to empower students at the University at Buffalo to succeed in their education by removing barrier’s from their progress”…and to offer a lasting legacy of the CTO who was so meaningful to one of this industry’s greatest technology companies.
