Strategy in TECH...
Although Sonos CEO Patrick Spence and CFO Brittany Bagley both proclaimed that the Sonos fiscal Q3 results were “better than expected,” the fact that they reported that revenues had declined and the company booked a much larger net loss seems to be rubbing investors the wrong way. As of this writing on August 6th, the value of Sonos shares have declined more than 18% in afternoon trading.
Emerald Holding Inc. (NYSE:EEX) – formerly Emerald Expositions Events, Inc. – released their fiscal 2020 second quarter results this week and it’s no surprise that they were brutal, as the company continues to find itself caught in a COVID catastrophe that is killing in-person events, like the very expositions they produce. With the second quarter covering the period of April – June, the previous peak of the pandemic’s infections and deaths (since exceeded), the company performance – as expected – was really challenged, with the bulk of their various trade shows and in-person events cancelled or postponed.
But the company did have one piece of good news…the insurance companies providing event cancellation insurance to the company have begun paying against their claims.
Melrose plc, parent company to Nortek, Inc., has taken some serious incoming hits this month – hits from both major credit rating agencies Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service. And these hits hurt. Fitch was first when they announced a couple of weeks ago that in a review of GKN Holdings Limited – Melrose’s largest holding by far – it was maintaining its credit rating at current levels, but it was changing its future “Outlook” to “Negative.” Today, Moody’s announced they too were changing their outlook on GKN from “Ratings Under Review” to “Negative.”
In a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Sonos, Inc. [SONO:NASDAQ] announced a series of measures to try and get company costs under control in the wake of the COVID-19 impacted economy. More drastic than previous announcements, Sonos said it will cut its global headcount, close its New York retail store, close six satellite offices, cut the CEO pay, and further cut the executive team’s pay.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, KKR Stream Holdings LLC reported that it sold nearly 14 million shares of Sonos, Inc. stock (SONO:NASDAQ). The sale took place on Wednesday (June 17, 2020) and, according to their disclosure filed with the SEC, this sale takes them completely out of Sonos ownership, with zero shares remaining in its portfolio.
Just last Friday, the big news hit that Sound United had signed a letter of intent (LoI) to acquire respected audio specialty brand Bowers & Wilkins. Strata-gee was one of the first to break the news and from the moment I hit “publish,” Strata-gee web traffic stats made it clear that you all viewed this as big news as well.
That first announcement came from the Sound United camp – and it was pretty terse. As luck would have it, for the last couple of weeks before that news hit, I had already been pursuing an interview with James Krakowski, Bowers & Wilkins’ Executive Vice President, Americas, to follow up on a previous story. Although we had been struggling to find a time to connect, when this news hit, he graciously agreed to make himself immediately available for an interview.
Late in the day yesterday (Friday), Strata-gee told you about an announcement from top multi-brand audio provider Sound United, saying they had reached a preliminary agreement to acquire Bowers & Wilkins (B&W), a leading high-performance, high end audio loudspeaker brand. It was big news that represented another step in a long saga of B&W looking for a new home, after a previous deal with EVA Automation and its CEO Gideon Yu fell completely apart.
Now as I write this today, B&W has released a rare Saturday morning press statement that gives the same news – but from the B&W side of the deal…a statement that seems shaded differently than the Sound United characterization.
In yet another twist in the long and winding saga of Bowers & Wilkins (B&W), it was announced late Friday that the company has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Sound United, the parent company of several audio brands such as Denon, Marantz, Polk Audio, Definitive Technology, HEOS, Classé, and Boston Acoustics.
COVID-19, the massive pandemic that changed everything this year, probably infected your business and perhaps made it ill in a way that will take time to recover. But for Emerald Expositions, the national expositions company that owns the CEDIA Expo show and CE Pro – COVID-19 almost killed them.
Now Emerald’s sugar daddy, Onex Corporation, is ready to throw them a lifeline…a $400 million lifeline to be exact.
On Wednesday, we learned that Savant Systems Inc. (Savant), has acquired the lighting business from none other than the mighty GE. Terms of the transaction were not released, but the Wall Street Journal reports that “the transaction valued the unit at around $250 million, according to a person familiar with the matter.” GE has been a major lighting provider for over a hundred years.
