Just seen in Septembers "Optical World" That Vision Ease is now in the hands of the US bankruptcy courts....
Artical seems to point out that apparent mismanagement and neglect as the cause.
Just what do you think will happen to them ?
Vision Ease....
Just seen in Septembers "Optical World" That Vision Ease is now in the hands of the US bankruptcy courts....
Artical seems to point out that apparent mismanagement and neglect as the cause.
Just what do you think will happen to them ?
Vision Ease has been sold to Insight Equity for US$56.5 million, an investment firm in Texas with no previous optical investments. It was sold in an auction held by the bankruptcy court. PolyCore, a Singapore based lens manufacture also bid but lost to Insight with bidding apparently going back and forth several times starting at $45 million.
On this side of the Atlantic the bancrupty trustee steps in if they are not under prorection of the court to re-organize.Originally Posted by John R
If they can't come up with a solution the trustee will sell them. The trustee will try to sell the whole company if possible and one of the biggies will pick them up for peanuts and have another branch plant making Hoya or Zeiss or Essilor lenses.
If none wants to venture into this one, it will be sold piece by piece for probably 10 cents to the Dollar value.
Doesn't surprise me, although I hate to see it. Wonder what will happen to them?? Seems like a lot of interesting optical companies are going bankrupt for the same reason, too bad someone doesn't pick them up and start another AO, B&L type operation.
My understanding is that VisionEase was one of the few profitable divisions of BMC. BMC is the company that actually went bankrupt and, as Impact500 noted, VisionEase appears to be sucessfully moving out from under the cloud of the BMC failure. My understanding is that the sale to Insight Equity is scheduled to be completed towards the end of this month. Presuming it goes forward, and I belive all involved certainly hope it will, I expect that VisionEase will come out much better off.
On an aside, I was somewhat surprised that neither Hoya nor Essilor was in on the bidding.
Nondisclosure forms were signed by 83 firms, 8 of them from the industry. There are hints in court documents that Essilor was one but that they did not enter the bidding. I find no clear indication that Hoya took an interest at all.
Sales have been falling steadily. 2000 $140 million, 2001 $131 million, 2002 $110 million. SEC filings stopped with the Sept. 2003 report but for the Jan/Sept. 2003 period, sales were down 9.5% from the prior year.
Operating losses were reported for VE of $3.1 million in 2002 and $4.3 million for Jan/Sept. 2003. If corporate interest expense is prorated by revenue, VE's losses were $7.8 million in 2002 and $9.0 million for Jan/Sept. 2003.
As of Dec. 2002 - most recent data I can find - the corporate pension obligation was $36.6 million but pension plan assets were only $15.1 million. Hopefully the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. will cover the difference.
The parent company was heavily in debt - to a great degree due to the Orcolite acquisition. They were in serious arrears in payments to the banks who have taken a large haircut on the loan via the pre-packaged bankruptcy. The banks certainly benefited by Polycore entering the bidding which reduced their loss but far from eliminated it.
It will be interesting to see what Insight Equity does. It will be challenging. The big three pressure VE from the top down and a growing group of mid to small size players squeeze from the bottom up. Most VE's products are now commodities with no pricing power and they lack the vertical integration of the big guys. The major unknown is some patented technology but it's unclear if they have a unique magic bullet or not. Also there seems to be some legal disputes over some of the technology.
The geo-political risk of Indonesia where VE's prime factory is located is also problematical.
Amateur comments. I may be wrong.
Mike Schaus
Anyone know why Insight Equity has not yet closed the purchase of VE?
They said by the end of September, the deadline is October 31, 2004.
The deadline may be shifted to Nov. 30 per a new court document. A filing states, " .... it is possible that not all of the outstanding closing conditions will be resolved by that date [Oct. 31] .... "
I find no indication of the precise issues. I also read nothing that hints at a serious issue that might terminate the deal. I suspect there are three general issues - (1) it's a complicated transaction with a lot of details to be worked, (2) staffing has been cut dramatically at VE and the folks who know where files are and can answer questions are few and pulled in many directions, and (3) sadly there are some incentives to delay - attorney fees as an example; the flip side of course is if they miss something, they'll be slammed in the future.
These are amateur comments. I may be wrong.
Mike Schaus
Any reason for the resignation of Hepper and Peterson from BMC Ind? Is it to take the same positions at the buyer of VE, Insight Equity?
Well, now that the Vision-Ease sale has been completed there really isn't much BMC left, all that remains is the property of the creditors (via the courts). There may not be enough cash left to pay the salaries or they may have been asked to resign by the courts (or creditors, I'm not sure how this works).
To answer your second question, I'd be more than somewhat surprised if Insight Equity would have any interest in the CEO of VP of whatever it was of a failed corporation. Of course stranger things have happened.
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