Gibson Brands CEO Responds to Moody’s Downgrade
The music industry is positively buzzing about the announcement late last week by Moody’s Investors Service that, for the second time in three months, it has downgraded the credit rating of Nashville, Tennessee-based Gibson Brands. Gibson (formerly Gibson Guitars) is a tightly held private company that launched an aggressive diversification strategy a few years ago, focusing on acquiring several consumer electronics brands such as Onkyo Corp. and Teac, Corp. and recently Philips.
Apple, Inc. is starting to look brown, bruised, and past its prime in wake of the surprising quarterly results that showed growth in sales of their bellwether iPhone product to be the slowest since the company launched the product category in 2007. Not only that, but the company forecast an overall sales decline for the first quarter of 2016 – their first sales decline since 2003. Reaction from Wall Street was swift with the price of Apple stock down more than 6% in mid-afternoon trading.
Although the odds appear stacked against Taiwan’s Foxconn in its bid to acquire Sharp Corp., new reports suggest that CEO Terry Gou has intensified his efforts to win the troubled Japanese giant by meeting directly with Japanese government officials and offering new promises. In a report out of Japan by Reuters, sources are saying that Gou will do whatever it takes to win the company, including detailing more of his plans to assuage concerns and eliminate opposition to the deal.
Last week, Moody’s Investors Service announced that it was cutting Toshiba Corp.’s long-term senior bond rating to Ba2, or “junk” status. Considering recent reports from Toshiba, a major industry player that is stumbling in the wake of a 
