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发帖数: 11154 | 1 虽然是一片市场分析的文章，里面关于S&W前些年的历史问题的信息还不错：
http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=108532
History
The company was founded in 1852 by Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson as a
partnership under the name Smith & Wesson Arms Company. Because of
financial problems, they brought in an outside investor, Oliver
Winchester, and changed the name of the company to Volcanic Arms
Company. In 1855, Smith decided to leave and Wesson soon followed. In
1857, Smith and Wesson started a new partnership and produced their
first revolver.
In 1873, Daniel Wesson purchased Horace Smith’s interest in the company.
It stayed in the hands of the Wesson family until 1964. Since then, the
company has changed hands many times.
Problems
Even though the company possessed one of the best brands in the world,
this alone did not ensure prosperity. Problems started in the 1980s when
foreign gun makers aggressively entered the U.S. market, targeting the
law enforcement market, which at the time belonged almost exclusively to
Smith and Wesson. The company completely ignored the threat from foreign
competitors. For example, when Glock, an Austrian gun manufacturer,
introduced a polymer pistol, Smith and Wesson did not think much of it
because the management thought that police officers would not carry
plastic guns. They failed to put themselves in the shoes of these
officers who were not of the same opinion because they were the ones
that had to carry metal guns, which were much heavier than the newly
designed Glock pistols. Also, the new pistols held more bullets and had
more firepower than Smith and Wesson’s revolvers. Because the company
did not offer a competing product, it slowly lost market share to its
foreign competitor.
Besides losing battles with foreign competitors, the company faced
another problem in late 1999 when the Clinton administration threatened
to bring a national lawsuit against firearm manufacturers on behalf of
the country’s public-housing authorities. Consequently, Smith and Wesson
decided to work with the administration and adopted some “gun-safety”
measures such as requiring background checks for buyers. This infuriated
customers and dealers who then boycotted the company. They believed that
they had a Constitutional right to carry guns and felt betrayed when
Smith and Wesson cooperated with the administration. This obviously was
detrimental as many customers and dealers suddenly stopped conducting
business with Smith and Wesson. During this time, the company was owned
by a British conglomerate, Tomkins PLC, which, out of distress, chose to
sell the company at a fire sale price.
During the next two years, the new management worked on restoring
confidence and putting the company back on its feet. Unfortunately, they
hit another roadblock because the Securities and Exchange Commission
started an investigation of the company’s accounting practices because
of the questionable way in which it recorded one of its acquisitions.
Finally, in 2004, the board of directors decided to seek help. | C*******r
发帖数: 10345 | 2 Smith Wesson vs Glock 不就是 GM vs Toyota |
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