Which Japanese company bought Lamy?

[Doc Dan]

I saw where a Japanese company has purchased Lamy. Does anyone know which one?

[Mark from Yorkshire]

@Doc Dan, it is Mitsubishi pencil co. See here: 

there is already an active thread about this.

[Doc Dan]

Thanks

 

[jchch1950]

😰  Let see what the future will bring. We are in a season of capital mergers.

[Misfit]

So true @jchch1950 I was extremely disappointed when I saw the Discover credit card company was bought by Capital One.  

[Karmachanic]

Sink or Swim.  Lamy decided to swim.

[Doc Dan]

Probably, Lamy was a lucrative, but small company, that produced popular pens. Mitsubishi wanted to expand into that market. Lamy sold because the money was too good to turn down. Mitsubishi believes this will add a necessary product to their portfolio and help them become more prosperous. It is my hope that in five or six years Lamy is not up for sale, again. 

[inkstainedruth]

13 hours ago, Misfit said:

So true @jchch1950 I was extremely disappointed when I saw the Discover credit card company was bought by Capital One.  

Oh I had not known that.  I always liked Discover and my opinion of Capital One is somewhat mixed (IIRC they issued the BJ's Warehouse credit card, and I've heard some not great stuff about Capital One, even though we haven't had a problem with the BJ's card). 

It could be worse though -- it could have been Synchrony Bank.  They're the one that issued the Sam's Club card and it's kinda been a nightmare ever since (got NO notification before going down to MS for my husband's sideline business, and had to scramble to use other cards -- and THEN call those other card companies and say "YES!  This is a LEGITIMATE purchase all week!" because the new cards were "in the mail" -- unbeknownst to us.  Then the next year, my husband called them ahead of the trip to MS, and ALSO told them that we were doing a one-off event near Indianapolis in June.  Only Synchrony apparently didn't parse the "in JUNE" part.  So, he leaves two days before me to set up, and while I'm doing last minute shopping in the local Sam's I got a call from him going, "Problems with the card!"  I get home and find a message left on the answering machine from them.  Call Synchrony back and got told "Oh, we can't talk to YOU -- you're not the primary on the account....  And no, we can't make outgoing calls from here...."  And I said, "Well, since this is YOUR screwup, since you were told about this in MARCH, you have two choices: (1) You talk to me -- since I'm the one signing the checks PAYING you people every month; or (2) You FIND someone with the ability and authority to make outgoing calls!  YOUR CHOICE!"  

After that?  I use the Sam's card to walk in the door -- and then make a POINT of NOT using it to pay for ANYTHING -- I use the Discover card for that, on general principle.  (Ironically, it used to be that Sam's would ONLY accept Discover -- NOT VISA or MC.)  My husband will still use it for the sideline business, but for shopping for us?  Synchrony can go [expletive deleted] themselves as far as I'm concerned.  Although they DID, just last week, contact him about a possible fraudulent charge on that card, and he told them: "No we did NOT make that!"  So maybe Synchrony is getting at least a LITTLE better....  But I still have bad memories of those two incidents -- NEITHER of which were our fault, but THEIRS....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Misfit]

@inkstainedruth Capital One is trying to buy Discover. They need regulatory approval, so it could be a couple years. All the articles mention how Discover is the fourth largest of the credit card companies. Evidently Capital One wants Discover’s network. And they note it will be a 60% Capital One and 40% Discover leadership. Back in the day, if a retailer told my Dad we don’t take Discover, he said no, Discover doesn’t take you. 
 

It’s been my favorite credit card too. It irks me about these mergers. Every time I see the “what’s in your wallet?” ad, I always say not your card. But how long will that last?  Sigh. 
 

The only constant is change. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Family owned from 1930, the competition from China was a mention 10 years ago when I did a newspaper sponsored tour of the factory.

 

Chinese pens today are worth buying, which they were not really 10 years ago. Buy 10 get three that worked.

A Chinese company was making Safari clones a decade ago as soon as the patent ran out.

 

It was written that Lamy had had other problems with other business partners.

 The ship was slowly sinking, due to good , cheaper Chinese pens....so the family bailed out, in time.

 

 

[txomsy]

Well, first tanks for the thread, I just saw the news and was wondering as well.

 

As for survival... I think that is a bet. As the market slowly shifts towards sustainability and trash reduction, better quality products will have a higher advantage over the "buy many, get a few that work for some time, throw the others away and when the ones that worked fail, get a new batch" philosophy. The bet is whether it will happen in time or not.

 

To stand the ground one needs a good reserve and increased innovation cycles. For a family company, if (which I do not know whether it is the case) ownership is losing steam or interest due to an apparently shrinking market or an aging directive team, it may make more sense to pass it on to a bigger company with larger resilience capacity and with the required quality reputation to feel your loved brand will have a chance to survive maintaining what it stood for.

 

For the larger company, that provides an entry point into a large foreign market where they were less known using a very well known and loved brand name...

 

Not that I claim those to have nothing to do with the actual reasons, I have no knowledge at all, it just sounds plausible to me. Most likely it is just a matter of so much cash put on the table.

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Factory was 100 yards long, 40 or so wide.. When i was there 1/3 of the factory wasn't working.

Very efficient warehouse.

Probably no real reason's to modernist the gold nib department, where they make the 2000....could put in more than the '60's ball point filler machine.

 

The giant ten yard long-4 yard wide nib machine had been replaced by one less than half as big according to Gouletts video. Which would explain the burn mark in the bottom of the steel nibs, to bring the tips together, in nib cutting the tips are spread out in manufacture. When I was there they used heat to bring the tips together.

 

A question arises, if a machine is doing enough would it be replaced at cost for a small increase in hopes that more can be gotten out of it, hoping for an expanded market. The machines doing the cartridges seemed well adequate eve if not the newest.

 

The rest of the large machinery though not new, were quite adequate for the simple procedures of making pen bodies and feeds. Some 15 pen bodies a minute, in three places with three different machines for different bodies, with half the factory or 1/3 down.

 

The choke point was the drum, sound nib tester and the little old lady who tweeked the failed nibs. About one in 15 needed to be tweeked.

 

It's only now that I keep realizing 1/3 of the factory was down.

 

In one back corner was a huge tank with lots of dye bags and pipes going places. We were not allowed in that section. that looked like it could have been modernized, but it worked just fine...can't produce more than you can sell. How many years would it take to amortize the investment?

The ink cartridge machine was also one of them that worked just fine...even if yesterday's. 15 ink cartridges filled and sealed every few seconds. Could have been twice that. I'm more into piston pens, than cartridges.

[Runnin_Ute]

I believe that one of the reasons for the sale was there wasn't a family member in the next generation that wanted to take over for aging family. Part succession planning, part estate planning. 

[krayzie]

Imagine being able to buy Lamy at Staples, but the product may not be Made in Germany.