So now they are getting out of the box store business but yet they killed Dixon including their commercial line of Zero-Turns which were good mowers for less money and repairable/rebuildable when bad things did happen. (They held onto Dixon for ten years cheapening their line before pulling the cord)!
Probably a three to five year restructuring plan they implemented years ago and just ax things as the deadlines occur. Anyone hear of them purchasing or buying out any domestic or Euro companies they might be using to supplant or pay for future restructuring? I saw they bought a Chinese firm a little over a year ago, Jenn Feng Outdoor Products, that produce chainsaws, mowers and generators. I wonder if a production shift to Asia for the Chinese market and beyond is or was in the works or what tariff increases may have done since the acquisition in 2017 to their plan?
Many times, big companies get TOO big and lose sight of what made them a good company to begin with. That starts with appeasing shareholders and not the consumer in a throw-away consumer market!
Jenn Feng were part of McCulloch with factories in Tiwan & the Phillipines.
They owned the trade name for the Asia-Pacific zone and made several other brands under license from the brand owners.
With the rise of Chinese manufacturing and the undervaluing of the Yuen there was no way they could survive as the store brands started to source product from China.
When Husqvarna outdoor products ( nothing to do with the motorcycles ) was spun off European equipment makers saw the writing on the wall very quickly and amalgamated into Gobal Garden Products based in Italy so there is little left for Husqvarna to plunder in Europe.
Better picking in the USA where consumer greed is forcing factories to off shore to China & Mexico in order to continually become cheaper.
There is no way a USA company can compete price wise, when any importer can buy walk behind mowers from China at $ 47 each ex wharf or 42" ride ons for $ 400 ex-wharf .
So with a market where profit margins are being squeezed towards zero it makes good sense to buy local brands & close them down as there is no chance of anyone opening a new factory to revive them.
You then import all of your own bottom end products which you sell at a bigger profit than your competitors which you can slowly push bankrupt.
Remember Husqvarna owns the AYP factory and they account for around 1/3 of the residential ride on market.
So Husqvarna can exit the tractor type market all together yet still make good money from all of the other brands made at their factory while putting money into the ZTR divisions which are much more profitable.
So in place of making $ 100 profit per unit on an outlay of millions on their own branded tractors they can make $ 50 profit with no outlay on every one elses tractors.
Thus Roper, Rover, Craftsman & all the other brands AYP make become indebted to AYP and eventually when they can not pay the bills, get swallwed up for next to nothing.
Ruthless, mean, nasty even but sound economic planning so long as you can divorce yourself from the fact you are destroying the life of thousands of USA factory workers.