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2023/12/21 09:45:18
Subject: Vallejo bought out by Private Equity company ProA Capital
"The private equity firm ProA Capital has closed the acquisition of a majority stake of approximately 70% on Acrylicos Vallejo for €50 million, according to the newspaper Expansión."
I remember around the time they unveiled the Xpress line they also put up some absolutely soulless website full of empty corpo buzzwords, so I assume they accomplished exactly what they aimed for.
Could be a very good thing (private capital allowing for development of new ranges)
Could be a very bad thing (sod the quality, we just want the profits).
I hope for the former, dread the latter. Whilst I don’t use their paints myself, they’re a pretty big competitor to Citadel Paints, and so keep Citadel Paints on their toes.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
My last experience of working somewhere bought by a private equity firm was "bleed staff, reduce overheads, move as many roles to India as possible and skim maximum profits, try to sell once its worthless and the money is doubled", so I'm on the pessimistic side.
2023/12/21 14:32:21
Subject: Vallejo bought out by Private Equity company ProA Capital
Dudeface wrote: My last experience of working somewhere bought by a private equity firm was "bleed staff, reduce overheads, move as many roles to India as possible and skim maximum profits, try to sell once its worthless and the money is doubled", so I'm on the pessimistic side.
Also the story of most of my country's national wealth.
The old meta is dead and the new meta struggles to be born. Now is the time of munchkins.
2023/12/21 15:25:24
Subject: Vallejo bought out by Private Equity company ProA Capital
zedmeister wrote: Ah crap, I smell potential asset stripping or a carve up coming. Expecting a drop in quality as well...
Oh, forgot to mention the obligatory offshoring
Or.
Or.
Or. The investment may enable Vallejo to expand into other markets, consolidate into their existing market. Allow for the purchase of Capital assets. Enable vallejo to remain to do all this AND make decent paint to plaster over our army mans.
2023/12/21 15:34:45
Subject: Vallejo bought out by Private Equity company ProA Capital
zedmeister wrote: Ah crap, I smell potential asset stripping or a carve up coming. Expecting a drop in quality as well...
Oh, forgot to mention the obligatory offshoring
Or.
Or.
Or. The investment may enable Vallejo to expand into other markets, consolidate into their existing market. Allow for the purchase of Capital assets. Enable vallejo to remain to do all this AND make decent paint to plaster over our army mans.
With any company takeover some staff will get cold feet and leave, middle to higher management positions can be unstable due to the new owners having someone in mind from one of their other ventures possibly. The relative success of this depends on:
- The new owners willingness to invest in the first place
- Understanding that profits can't always go up
- Retaining or hiring the right people is key to expansion or retaining current operating policies
- That the new owners don't come in with some very western ideals of capitalistic behaviours and start to "cut fat"
As they're a relative unknown we don't know if they have some share-holder driven management team ready to shove in place who will lower staff retention and cut costs in order to maintain a threshold of profitability, or if they'll actively invest money and quality staff and time from across their portfolio/external to branch out. If I see an upcoming Vallejo range of wall emulsion in the next 6 months I'll take that as a bad sign for example.
A lot of people have negative experiences of these situations and there's often a trend of big successful investment firms either not caring or believing they know best irrespective of the field/experience of the staff they just inherited and then screwing it up and not understanding why.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/12/21 16:17:41
2023/12/21 16:30:58
Subject: Vallejo bought out by Private Equity company ProA Capital
Another trend that can happen is that the company is allowed to operate on its own; but is now fighting hard for resources from the Parent firm. So whilst the Parent firm doesn't demand lower quality or stripping overheads or such; they do demand regular profits and increases and such so that their investment pays off.
The result is the company can end up focusing on the Parent firm instead of their customers.
You see the exact same thing with firms that go heavily into the stockmarket. Even if they don't have a majority shareholder, they now have many "shareholders and investors" and again the focus shifts to them instead of their customers.
Heck GW at their tail end of the Kirby era was very much clearly in that rut of focusing on the shareholders meeting instead of customers (even to the utter extreme of not even wanting customer feedback).
Quick read-through of the corpo buzz-word site leads me to believe that the new owners are likely going to try to expand into/focus on producing paint for fine art and other markets rather than their current focus on the hobby market. They are already a major player in the hobby niche, but its a small niche for them to stay in and doesn't present the growth potential that they can unlock if they move into other areas like... i dunno, house paint or some gak.
CoALabaer wrote: Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
2023/12/21 19:05:21
Subject: Re:Vallejo bought out by Private Equity company ProA Capital
My condolences to Vallejo's employees. I'm not happy to hear this, as Vallejo is my primary go-to paint. GW paints are of course excellent, but I can't stand the bottles they use for them. It's dripper bottles all the way for me. (I have sometimes transferred GW paint to dripper bottles, but it's a pain in the butt and you can't do it without wasting some paint.) That said, GW's bright yellow beats the pants off of Vallejo's.
Fortunately it seems most if not all companies other than GW use dripper bottles, so if I have to migrate from Vallejo's line I'll have somewhere to go.
I've been very curious about trying Vallejo's new iterations of its paints, too. Maybe I should get on that sooner rather than later.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/12/21 19:07:26
Dakkadakka: Bringing wargamers together, one smile at a time.™
2023/12/21 19:19:23
Subject: Vallejo bought out by Private Equity company ProA Capital
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Could be a very good thing (private capital allowing for development of new ranges)
Like the new brushes they've just released?
'It is a source of constant consternation that my opponents cannot correlate their innate inferiority with their inevitable defeat. It would seem that stupidity is as eternal as war.'
- Nemesor Zahndrekh of the Sautekh Dynasty Overlord of the Crownworld of Gidrim
2023/12/21 19:22:06
Subject: Vallejo bought out by Private Equity company ProA Capital
In the last couple of years, Vallejo has updated the Game Color line (and adding 60 new Xpress Color paints to the line as well), updated the Game Color Air range along with the brushes mentioned above and other products they have really been updating and expanding their hobby line before this buyout. What their fine arts line is doing I'm not sure about.
'It is a source of constant consternation that my opponents cannot correlate their innate inferiority with their inevitable defeat. It would seem that stupidity is as eternal as war.'
- Nemesor Zahndrekh of the Sautekh Dynasty Overlord of the Crownworld of Gidrim
2023/12/21 20:24:19
Subject: Vallejo bought out by Private Equity company ProA Capital
I don't follow their news despite using the products but you have to remember if they've released the brushes recently, that wasn't their new owners funding or approving that, it would have been in their pipeline anyway
2023/12/21 20:30:48
Subject: Vallejo bought out by Private Equity company ProA Capital
Dudeface wrote: I don't follow their news despite using the products but you have to remember if they've released the brushes recently, that wasn't their new owners funding or approving that, it would have been in their pipeline anyway
Yes, that was the point. They don't appear to need capital allowing for development of new ranges as far as we know.
'It is a source of constant consternation that my opponents cannot correlate their innate inferiority with their inevitable defeat. It would seem that stupidity is as eternal as war.'
- Nemesor Zahndrekh of the Sautekh Dynasty Overlord of the Crownworld of Gidrim
2023/12/21 20:34:26
Subject: Re:Vallejo bought out by Private Equity company ProA Capital
Mr. Burning wrote: Looking at ProA's website and their portfolio, looks like they take companies that are underinvested but have scope for growth.
Meh, could be a good thing.
Yeah, I dunno about the gloom and doom. They're a Spanish firm that claims to invest 'in market-leading family-run companies.' Doesn't sound like a group that defaults to the chainsaw approach. At least it wouldn't be good for their brand to be mercilessly chopping up family-run local companies for profit.
It does sound to me like Vallejo wants to grow and diversify, but just doesn't have the capital to do it. And that all makes sense considering they mainly operate in the hobby niche.
It wouldn't shock me to see some of their older paint lines disappear especially those aimed at reproducing GW colours that no longer exist (unless they've become the go to for other things and are still selling in decent volumes)
but they may well feel they can use the strong niche name recognition from Vallejo's hobby audience to break them into the mainstream art paint market (well the higher/expensive end stuff not made in the far east anyway)
2023/12/21 21:29:57
Subject: Re:Vallejo bought out by Private Equity company ProA Capital
my thoughts as well. Underperforming product lines will be cut, new product lines that target other niches and audiences and markets with higher growth potential will be launched.
CoALabaer wrote: Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
2023/12/21 21:33:21
Subject: Vallejo bought out by Private Equity company ProA Capital
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: but they may well feel they can use the strong niche name recognition from Vallejo's hobby audience to break them into the mainstream art paint market (well the higher/expensive end stuff not made in the far east anyway)
This milestone was not only relevant for the company, but it was also significant for the Spanish art and painting sector. Before then the world of Fine Arts exclusively used oil paints, and it was Vallejo who introduced acrylics to the artistic mainstream. In Spain, the use of acrylics in Fine Arts at all levels soared after Vallejo’s innovation and they have remained the mainstay of Fine Arts ever since.
In 1992 Spain was in a state of euphoria because of the Barcelona Olympic Games and Seville’s Expo 92 World Fair. Vallejo too was going from strength to strength, having discovered the market niche that would allow them to continue being on the crest of the wave of innovation in their sector. In 1992 Vallejo began to focus on the world of scale modeling.
'It is a source of constant consternation that my opponents cannot correlate their innate inferiority with their inevitable defeat. It would seem that stupidity is as eternal as war.'
- Nemesor Zahndrekh of the Sautekh Dynasty Overlord of the Crownworld of Gidrim
2023/12/22 08:41:05
Subject: Vallejo bought out by Private Equity company ProA Capital
