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.
In an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review, author Walter Frick cites several studies whose results suggest that where companies treat workers better, there is more innovation. Sound crazy? Not a connection you’d usually make? Actually, the article notes a few studies where researchers directly correlated a company’s score of worker treatment against their patent filings. The results appear to hold up, across different studies in different industries in different countries.
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 
We reported to you last month that, in an unexpected development best described as surprising, 
