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HobbiCo / Great Planes / Tower Hobbies

Never good to hear such a big name in the game fall or in the process of doing so. Especially in such a niche industry. Definitely feel for the people who's jobs are on the line.

For me, biggest impact is with Axial. I have a few of their products, they are awesome and honestly no body else really makes much that appeals to me in the crawler world. If they shut down and discontinue their products I'm worried 3rd party support will go out the window fairly quickly (in addition to the obvious loss of OEM supplied parts) for the products I own. Hope at least Axial is able to live on in some way.
 
The kind that makes decisions like buying Team Durango, investing in development, then scuttling the brand. Though, I thought I heard that Team Durango simply became Aarma, but they share so little in design cues & asthetics so I don’t really know.
 
txbart said:
The kind that makes decisions like buying Team Durango, investing in development, then scuttling the brand. Though, I thought I heard that Team Durango simply became Aarma, but they share so little in design cues & asthetics so I don’t really know.
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OMG youre not kidding. I watched the whole build up on the Touring Car and the top tier drivers they brought in. Then Poof but youre right Durango became Armma.

© 2018 ARRMA Durango Ltd. A subsidiary of Hobbico, Inc.
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Maybe Duratrax can keep them afloat with their aerosol paint :roll:
 
Robbob said:
OMG youre not kidding. I watched the whole build up on the Touring Car and the top tier drivers they brought in. Then Poof but youre right Durango became Armma.



Maybe Duratrax can keep them afloat with their aerosol paint :roll:
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HobbiCo made a lot of bad purchases. I believe Durango was one. Sure, it's Arrma now, but they are no Traxxas. HPI was surely a bad purchase. That was a dead company.

I read on the book of faces that HobbiCo used to own the plastic molding company that made their parts for Axial, etc. And then they apparently sold that company and owed it money so they wouldn't make the Axial parts. And from there it forced them to create molds. I don't know if that's true, but if it was cheaper to make all new molds then they owed a shit ton of money.

It sounds like poor management which is often what kills companies.

You laugh about the paint, but I bet that is a sustainable business since there isn't much competition out there for lexan paint.
 
What is a 'Subsidiary'

A subsidiary is a company with voting stock that is more than 50% controlled by another company, usually referred to as the parent company or the holding company. A subsidiary is partly or completely owned by the parent company, which holds a controlling interest in the subsidiary company. In cases where a parent company owns a foreign subsidiary, the subsidiary must follow the laws of the country where it is incorporated and operates, and the parent company carries the foreign subsidiary's financials on its consolidated financial statements

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So who knows about this stuff? ©2018 Axial R/C, Inc. A subsidiary of Hobbico, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Does that mean that the equity of Axial is independent from the holding company and out of bounds for the bankruptcy? That the courts can force Hobbico to liquidate their stock in the subsidiary, but has not directly go after the subsidiary for the holding companies debt?

Wouldn't Axial just be able to stand on its own under a new owner?
 
Ditchrat said:



So who knows about this stuff? ©2018 Axial R/C, Inc. A subsidiary of Hobbico, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Does that mean that the equity of Axial is independent from the holding company and out of bounds for the bankruptcy? That the courts can force Hobbico to liquidate their stock in the subsidiary, but has not directly go after the subsidiary for the holding companies debt?

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which holds a controlling interest in the subsidiary company
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No .... 'subsidiary of' means they are owned by someone else. Someone else who has controlling interest. Hobbico decides what happens to them.

But good thing is Axial holds value so even if they had to sell them, they're still a good investment for some one. "thumbsup"

Chapter 13 - Judge tells all parties who gets sold and how much debtors get
Chapter 11 - Defendant enters talks with all debtors and trys to get them to agree to repayment terms.
Chapter 7 - it all gos poof

Not truly legal terms ore definitions but pretty much sums it up from all I know and have read over the years.

Ditchrat said:

Wouldn't Axial just be able to stand on its own under a new owner?
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Axial has value in the market, they would be a good purchase for anyone willing to let them run things they way they have.
 
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Robbob said:
OMG youre not kidding. I watched the whole build up on the Touring Car and the top tier drivers they brought in. Then Poof but youre right Durango became Armma.



Maybe Duratrax can keep them afloat with their aerosol paint :roll:
Click to expand...

The weird thing is, there was no reason to discontinue any of those kits, even with Arrma being the new brand. That touring car was only available for what, a year? The DEX210 V3 never saw the light of day. Why stop making them altogether? The Durango brand & the Arrma brand served two entirely separate segments.
 
txbart said:
The weird thing is, there was no reason to discontinue any of those kits, even with Arrma being the new brand. That touring car was only available for what, a year? The DEX210 V3 never saw the light of day. Why stop making them altogether? The Durango brand & the Arrma brand served two entirely separate segments.
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Racing kits don't sell enough. In a niche hobby like RC, racing vehicles are a very small segment. And when the brand is smaller, like Durango, it probably didn't make any financial sense to keep the racing stuff around.
 
txbart said:
The weird thing is, there was no reason to discontinue any of those kits, even with Arrma being the new brand. That touring car was only available for what, a year? The DEX210 V3 never saw the light of day. Why stop making them altogether? The Durango brand & the Arrma brand served two entirely separate segments.
Click to expand...


The 210 saw light ..... Just a different name.
Serpent Model Racing Cars - Product - Spyder SRX2 Mid Hybrid 1/10 2wd
Serpent Model Racing Cars - Product - Spyder SRX2 MH TEAM 1/10 2wd

And the 4wd did too
Serpent Model Racing Cars - Product - Spyder SDX4 buggy 1/10 4wd
 
JatoTheRipper said:
Racing kits don't sell enough. In a niche hobby like RC, racing vehicles are a very small segment. And when the brand is smaller, like Durango, it probably didn't make any financial sense to keep the racing stuff around.
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The business minded side of me recognizes that Hobbico was buying Durango’s established supply chain, manufacturing connections, & design abilities. But they had to know what the end game was when they were buying. So why waste resources designing & tooling that touring car?
 
JatoTheRipper said:
Racing kits don't sell enough. In a niche hobby like RC, racing vehicles are a very small segment. And when the brand is smaller, like Durango, it probably didn't make any financial sense to keep the racing stuff around.
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Would you want the crowd that buys whats new because they think its gonna gain a tenth of a second ...... or do you want the crowd who cant change spur gears and wants to warranty everything they break from hitting brick buildings?


Ill take the racing crowd for long term investment Alex :mrgreen: :ror:

No ones mentioning the other giant .... TLR. Thankfully it looks like they dont drink out of the same water cooler.
 
txbart said:
The business minded side of me recognizes that Hobbico was buying Durango’s established supply chain, manufacturing connections, & design abilities. But they had to know what the end game was when they were buying. So why waste resources designing & tooling that touring car?
Click to expand...
Good question. Like I said in a previous post, I think the purchase of Durango was a huge mistake. Sure it provided the base for what became Arrma, but is that a profitable branch at this point? Only HobbiCo knows for sure.

Robbob said:
Would you want the crowd that buys whats new because they think its gonna gain a tenth of a second ...... or do you want the crowd who cant change spur gears and wants to warranty everything they break from hitting brick buildings?


Ill take the racing crowd for long term investment Alex :mrgreen: :ror:

No ones mentioning the other giant .... TLR. Thankfully it looks like they dont drink out of the same water cooler.
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I'll take the bashing crowd. Bashers keep this hobby alive.

Associated and TLR dominate the racing scene. That's why it's hard for new companies, such as Durango, to break in.
 
krush groove said:
Hobbico never owned HPI. As much as I hate to say the phrase, this was fake news before it ever got spread around by Big Squid and Live RC.

This is from May 2016
It's Official: Ripmax buys HPI Racing!
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Hobbico did pay up to be HPI's exclusive US distributor back in 2013 however.

https://www.hpiracing.com/en/article/view/2013021901

This is the best part of the whole press release:

HPI said:
These combined efforts will enable North American shops and customers better and faster access to HPI's kits, spares and support.
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So much LOLs from looking back at that.
 
svt923 said:
True, HPI was floundering back then with limited selection on new models and terrible parts support.... oh, you said things have changed.
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My local store thinks he will likely never see any of the HPI parts he has had on back order for the last 6 months.
 
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