Vista Outdoor sold

[LCazador]

Looks like it's official Vista Outdoor ammo group was sold to Czech Group. That's CCI, Federal, Hevi-Shot, Speer and Remington ammo. In the same announcement CCI will be manufacturing lead free primers. These primers could make cleaning a rifle much easier while alleviating the lead exposure hazard involved in making the primers. Interesting reading in NRA American Rifleman online.

 

[rijndael]

Non-Tox primers are known to be more abrasive and can accelerate barrel wear. The flash holes are usually bigger in non-toxic rounds too.

 

[markT]

Just paid $135 for (1000) BR-4 and $90 for (1000) BR-4 CCI Primers. ouch..

 

[Brians356]

Looks like it's official Vista Outdoor ammo group was sold to Czech Group.

Uh, not so fast. This from Elaine Williams in Lewiston Morning Tribune, 17 April 2024:
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The Czechoslovak Group is defending its proposed deal to buy a group of American bullet makers, including CCI/Speer, at a time when the transaction is being reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

The owner and chief executive officer of the Czechoslovak Group (CSG), Michal Strnad, shared his views in a letter to U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, according to a Tuesday news release from the Czechoslovak Group.

Strnad’s company has offered $1.91 billion to acquire the ammunition brands of Vista Outdoor, including CCI/Speer, which employs 1,400 in Lewiston, as well as Federal, Remington and HEVI-Shot.

Together those brands are the largest ammunition manufacturer in the U.S. and are called The Kinetic Group.

Vista Outdoor shareholders will meet virtually at 11 a.m. PDT on May 16 to vote on the offer. Shareholders of record as of April 1 are eligible to vote. If the sale closes, The Kinetic Group would become part of a privately held company.

Vance requested a security review of the sale in a January letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who also serves as the chairperson of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The federal committee is tasked with reviewing foreign investments in the U.S., to determine the national security effects of such deals, according to its website.

“We cannot afford for America’s supply of weapons to fall into the wrong hands,” Vance wrote. “Until it can be proven that this transaction will not jeopardize our national security, I respectfully urge you to deny the sale of Vista Outdoor’s Sporting Products business to the Czechoslovak Group.”
Vista Outdoor and the Czechoslovak Group voluntarily withdrew and refiled a joint voluntary notice with the Committee on Foreign Investment at the end of March. That action gives the committee more time to examine the proposed acquisition.

After the sale of The Kinetic Group, Vista Outdoor’s line of recreation products, which features brands such as Camelbak and Camp Chef, would be spun off into a separate public company called Revelyst.
The case for the Czechoslovak Group to own The Kinetic Group includes its familiarity with the small-caliber ammunition market through its acquisition of a majority stake in Fiocchi Munizioni, an Italian firm that has sites in Ozark, Mo., and Little Rock, Ark., Strnad wrote.

Output of Fiocchi has increased with Czechoslovak Group investment in the plants, according to a previous news release from CSG.

“In today’s global world … it is not important which allied country the buying company is based, but what its track record is and what value it can bring to the American ammunition manufacturers,” Strnad wrote.

Strnad describes Vance’s letter as containing “false accusations” and characterizes Vance’s assessment of the Czechoslovak Group as “profoundly mistaken.”

Vance claimed that Czechoslovak Group is a company with a “long record of wrongdoing and well-documented connections to American adversaries,” according to Strnad’s letter. “Specifically you mentioned ties to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s regime and violations of international arms embargoes.”

Czechoslovak Group has never supplied any defense products to Russia, but it did have “negligible” exports of civilian products like mining trucks, which ended after the escalation of Russian hostility against Ukraine, according to Strnad’s letter.

Czechoslovak Group never violated any arms embargo and was never investigated for doing so, Strnad wrote.

In fact, Czechoslovak Group is a key private supporter of the Ukrainian military and has supplied the country weapon systems dating back to 2018 before the “outbreak of open Russian aggression,” Strnad wrote.

Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Czechoslovak Group has supplied the Ukrainian Army — with the help of the government of the Czech Republic and other NATO countries, including the U.S. — more than one “hundred pieces of heavy equipment and, most importantly, hundreds of thousands of pieces of artillery ammunition, of which we are one of the most important European manufacturers,” he wrote.
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[6.5 forever]

Better buy a FEW extra primers when you can...now I didn't say start hoarding!

 

[STORM2]

Haven’t seen any large mag match rifle primers in years.

 

[CJ6]

Rem 9 1/2 Ms and CCI BR 2s have been around for awhile locally for about 2-3 months. Fed 215 GMMs showed up 3 weeks ago. Also the prices are cheaper than on-line.

 

[LCazador]

Federal 210GMM started showing up recently at $160/1K. Large rifle mag and standard should be showing up more in the fall. Thanks for the update 'Brians356'.

 

[Mcrider55]

Last I heard, prior to this thread, was that a 2nd buyer had appeared and was offering over 1 Billion, yes BILLION dollars more than the Czech offer, and Vista management said it wasn't in the best offer of the shareholders to consider this.

This would have been 50% MORE than the Czech offer.

WTF?????

Something smells very wrong when a significantly larger CASH offer is refused and done so that it's not in the best offer of the shareholders.

Anybody know more about this?

 

[CJ6]

There was a group in Texas that was offering $37 per share.

 

[urbanrifleman]

This whole thing stinks like a Kansas City stockyard.

 

[urbanrifleman]

Last I heard, prior to this thread, was that a 2nd buyer had appeared and was offering over 1 Billion, yes BILLION dollars more than the Czech offer, and Vista management said it wasn't in the best offer of the shareholders to consider this.

This would have been 50% MORE than the Czech offer.

WTF?????

Something smells very wrong when a significantly larger CASH offer is refused and done so that it's not in the best offer of the shareholders.

Anybody know more about this?

That company is priceless if you are a hostile foreign interest that wants to completely disable the American people's ability to get ammunition.

 

[Mcrider55]

They say 3 billion "significantly undervalues the company, yet the Czech offer of $1.9 doesn't?

Vista Outdoor gets improved $3 billion bid from MNC Capital

(Reuters) - Investment firm MNC Capital said on Monday it has raised its all cash bid to acquire sporting and outdoor products maker Vista Outdoor to $3 billion from $2.9 billion. Shares of the company were up about 4% in premarket trading after th...

wdez.com

(Reuters) – Investment firm MNC Capital said on Monday it has raised its all cash bid to acquire sporting and outdoor products maker Vista Outdoor to $3 billion from $2.9 billion.

Shares of the company were up about 4% in premarket trading after the New York Times DealBook first reported the improved offer.

The investment firm is offering $37.50 per share for all of Vista’s shares, up from its earlier bid of $35. The new offer represents a premium of 16% to Vista’s close on Friday.

The Anoka, Minnesota-headquarted company had rebuffed MNC Capital’s offer of $2.9 billion in March, stating the bid “significantly undervalued” the company.

Vista is in the middle of selling its sporting goods business to privately held Czech defense and civil manufacturing firm Czechoslovak Group (CSG) in a $1.91 billion deal that was announced last October.

 

[urbanrifleman]

Last I heard, prior to this thread, was that a 2nd buyer had appeared and was offering over 1 Billion, yes BILLION dollars more than the Czech offer, and Vista management said it wasn't in the best offer of the shareholders to consider this.

This would have been 50% MORE than the Czech offer.

WTF?????

Something smells very wrong when a significantly larger CASH offer is refused and done so that it's not in the best offer of the shareholders.

Anybody know more about this?

Let's be clear who controls the board on that company.

 

[Fuj]

Oldest trick in the book......Make a high offer and it drives up
the price of the stock. Then sell your shares, making a profit.
Then say your no longer interested in the company and walk
away......Stocks then tank......Walk back in and snap it all up.
Sometimes the trade commission steps in, but more often, not.

 

[rijndael]

Oldest trick in the book......Make a high offer and it drives up
the price of the stock.

Happens on ebay too. One account bids up an item against you, you back out and let them win, then the seller offers you to buy it at your last/highest bid because their shill account obviously doesn't want to buy their own item.

 

[TrapperBR549]

Is one offer for the entire company and the other for just certain parts of it?

 

[ebb]

Yea we have been treated so exceptionally well under our American overlord Jason Vanderbrink, he is just like our ruling elite "He knows what's best for us!" Out of all of the component shortages Vitavori has treated us very well. I think most of this is/has been greed, and I am not sure that a corporation from overseas is inherently any greedier than our local garden variety wall street criminals. And if congress is involved a dirty deal is mandatory.

 

[jpjulian]

Last I heard, prior to this thread, was that a 2nd buyer had appeared and was offering over 1 Billion, yes BILLION dollars more than the Czech offer, and Vista management said it wasn't in the best offer of the shareholders to consider this.

This would have been 50% MORE than the Czech offer.

WTF?????

Something smells very wrong when a significantly larger CASH offer is refused and done so that it's not in the best offer of the shareholders.

Anybody know more about this?

I am a shareholder, a small shareholder. The 2nd off was for the whole company, not just the ammo side. Vista turned down the 2nd offer as it was considered undervalued @ $35 per share. That offer has since been upped to $37 per share. The Czech group and Vista have now stepped back and are waiting for the feds to look into the sale as it pertains to national security.

 

[Brians356]

Oldest trick in the book......Make a high offer and it drives up
the price of the stock. Then sell your shares, making a profit.
Then say your no longer interested in the company and walk
away......Stocks then tank......Walk back in and snap it all up.
Sometimes the trade commission steps in, but more often, not.

There must be several obvious examples of the "oldest trick in the book" playing out recently. I'd be interested in learning from your three best examples. The stage is yours, sir.
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