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I didn't realize that GE appliances was a separate company with separate ownership (Haier & KKR). Its amazing how many of the old prestige brand names are now

I didn't realize that GE appliances was a separate company with separate ownership (Haier & KKR). Its amazing how many of the old prestige brand names are now just licensing or separate companies.

reaperducer 5y ago
Packard Bell. Lenovo. Magnavox. Crosley. Gold Bond. Radio Shack (It's a little messy). Circuit City. And a hundred more you see on late night TV commercials. Sometimes when a company goes bankrupt, the most valuable asset sold is the brand name and the goodwill that goes with it. As for GE Appliances, I had them in every apartment I lived in for about ten years. Never thought much about it until I moved to a place that had Maytag appliances. They were ten years old, but still better than the new GE ones in my previous place. Now my apartment is all KitchenAid in the kitchen and Maytag elsewhere. It's was like stepping into time capsule to the future.
- nunez 5y ago
  Appliances is kind-of an incestuous industry. All of the high-end brands are owned by "low-end" bigger brands. Example: KitchenAid is a subsidiary of Whirlpool, a huge competitor against Haier/GE Appliances. Viking, who makes perceivably high-end ranges and refrigerators, is owned by Amana, who makes all of the cheap appliances you see at Costco. See here for more: http://www.appliance411.com/purchase/make.shtml http://www.appliance411.com/purchase/make.shtml As for me: I absolutely love my GE appliances. Have their washer and dryer set as well as one of their newer french door refrigerators; love them all.
  - hinkley 5y ago
    It's the same model as automotive. A luxury brand where they try out new tech, then spread it to the cheaper models once they've amortized the R&D far enough. Or you have the manufacturing ladder, where you start out making low end goods until you've built up QA and engineering practices that let you go up-market. Sony was once cheap electronics only, and eventually LG took over that crown before rebranding and moving to high end too. Kia seems to have taken the latter approach, introducing the Genisis name for luxury goods only recently.
  - belval 5y ago
    Consumer reports had a page explaining that they rated most fridges in the low 6 because they all had high compressor failure rate. Turns out that every major manufacturer was using the same subsidiary for their compressor and consequently everyone was stuck with low-quality parts. So even across the "big" brands it's mostly the same thing.
  - The-Bus 5y ago
    Amana is owned by Whirlpool. Viking is owned by Middleby.
  - m0llusk 5y ago
    There are lots of interesting issues with how designs and production concepts are handled. MagicChef introduced electric ignition stoves and ovens and did quite well with that at first, but the more mature brands like Maytag knew how to sell and eventually squeezed MagicChef and bought them out. The remains of the company then got passed around. As a result most stove and oven designs are extremely similar to each other and to the later MagicChef designs which were superior in efficiency of construction, use, and maintenance but not so much in marketing and sales.
  - datavirtue 5y ago
    Whirlpool still makes good shit. GE appliances will still be very good for a while. I remember using Amana microwaves in restaurants. I literally tried to destroy them and they survived and thrived through very harsh treatment...amazing machines. Hobart...meh.
  - mark-r 5y ago
    When we built our house in 2000, my wife worked for a company that was doing a cross promotion with GE so we got a good discount on their appliances and fitted the whole house with them. Every single one has been nothing but trouble, and we've replaced the majority of them. The washer and dryer were the first to go.
- Animats 5y ago
  Maytag is just a brand of Whirlpool now. And the appliances are not as good.
  - reaperducer 5y ago
    Sad to hear. The ones i had were from 1996. Even though it was 2017, they still ran very well. Was that before the Whirlpool acquisition?
    - Animats 5y ago
      Yes. I now have a post-Maytag Maytag washer and dryer, and I've had to replace the washer once, because the seal at the base of the tub sprung a leak. This is such a common problem that there are multiple Youtube videos and repair kits for it. But it's a huge pain; you have to take the machine somewhere you can turn it upside down and disassemble it from the bottom.
lordnacho 5y ago
Which should alarm people more than it does. The signalling value of a brand is greatly diminished when it's just a label that can be moved around, created or hollowed out at will. It's a kind of obfuscation in many cases. How many people know that P&G or Unilever are behind a huge number of supermarket goods?
- dmix 5y ago
  Saab turned into a Chinese car company then a defence contractor bought it then it kinda just died on the shelf.
- klelatti 5y ago
  Not sure why the cases you cite are alarming. I actually think there are two levels of signalling in these cases 1. what the brand promises - and the corporate owner will usually want to protect that and 2. The reputation of a P&G or Unilever. I think problems often happen when the big corporate owners sell to private equity who are more often interested in boosting short term earnings.
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    1) Multiple brands for one producer: something bad happens, we cut the brand loose, move the staff who caused the problem elsewhere, or replace them, nobody knows. If it's really bad the mother co has enough money to place everything on the brand, with PR. The financial news will know it's P&G or Nestle or whatever, people on the street will see "Something Crunch is unhealthy and is discontinued". 2) Unknown holding company: yes, people can have general knowledge and to a degree it's their own fault for not knowing. But it also isn't, nobody has time to read about what thousands of brands are out there. > I think problems often happen when the big corporate owners sell to private equity who are more often interested in boosting short term earnings. Absolutely. I remember going to Ed's Diner here in the UK. They made a great burger in SoHo before I left the country for a few years. When I came back, they'd expanded across the country, which was a bit surprising to me, but I went in to eat there because of my previous experience. I took one bite, it was terrible, and I immediately told my wife "this tastes like private equity". I go on google, guess what, it was indeed bought by PE and they'd totally changed the burger. This is a form of lying to people that should not be tolerated but of course is a grey zone because it not easy to define when you've changed the burger so much that you can't call it the same thing.

I didn't realize that GE appliances was a separate company with separate ownership (Haier & KKR). Its amazing how many of the old prestige brand names are now just licensing or separate companies.

reaperducer 5y ago

Packard Bell. Lenovo. Magnavox. Crosley. Gold Bond. Radio Shack (It's a little messy). Circuit City. And a hundred more you see on late night TV commercials. Sometimes when a company goes bankrupt, the most valuable asset sold is the brand name and the goodwill that goes with it. As for GE Appliances, I had them in every apartment I lived in for about ten years. Never thought much about it until I moved to a place that had Maytag appliances. They were ten years old, but still better than the new GE ones in my previous place. Now my apartment is all KitchenAid in the kitchen and Maytag elsewhere. It's was like stepping into time capsule to the future.

nunez 5y ago
Appliances is kind-of an incestuous industry. All of the high-end brands are owned by "low-end" bigger brands. Example: KitchenAid is a subsidiary of Whirlpool, a huge competitor against Haier/GE Appliances. Viking, who makes perceivably high-end ranges and refrigerators, is owned by Amana, who makes all of the cheap appliances you see at Costco. See here for more: http://www.appliance411.com/purchase/make.shtml http://www.appliance411.com/purchase/make.shtml As for me: I absolutely love my GE appliances. Have their washer and dryer set as well as one of their newer french door refrigerators; love them all.
- hinkley 5y ago
  It's the same model as automotive. A luxury brand where they try out new tech, then spread it to the cheaper models once they've amortized the R&D far enough. Or you have the manufacturing ladder, where you start out making low end goods until you've built up QA and engineering practices that let you go up-market. Sony was once cheap electronics only, and eventually LG took over that crown before rebranding and moving to high end too. Kia seems to have taken the latter approach, introducing the Genisis name for luxury goods only recently.
- belval 5y ago
  Consumer reports had a page explaining that they rated most fridges in the low 6 because they all had high compressor failure rate. Turns out that every major manufacturer was using the same subsidiary for their compressor and consequently everyone was stuck with low-quality parts. So even across the "big" brands it's mostly the same thing.
- The-Bus 5y ago
  Amana is owned by Whirlpool. Viking is owned by Middleby.
- m0llusk 5y ago
  There are lots of interesting issues with how designs and production concepts are handled. MagicChef introduced electric ignition stoves and ovens and did quite well with that at first, but the more mature brands like Maytag knew how to sell and eventually squeezed MagicChef and bought them out. The remains of the company then got passed around. As a result most stove and oven designs are extremely similar to each other and to the later MagicChef designs which were superior in efficiency of construction, use, and maintenance but not so much in marketing and sales.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  Whirlpool still makes good shit. GE appliances will still be very good for a while. I remember using Amana microwaves in restaurants. I literally tried to destroy them and they survived and thrived through very harsh treatment...amazing machines. Hobart...meh.
- mark-r 5y ago
  When we built our house in 2000, my wife worked for a company that was doing a cross promotion with GE so we got a good discount on their appliances and fitted the whole house with them. Every single one has been nothing but trouble, and we've replaced the majority of them. The washer and dryer were the first to go.
Animats 5y ago
Maytag is just a brand of Whirlpool now. And the appliances are not as good.
- reaperducer 5y ago
  Sad to hear. The ones i had were from 1996. Even though it was 2017, they still ran very well. Was that before the Whirlpool acquisition?
  - Animats 5y ago
    Yes. I now have a post-Maytag Maytag washer and dryer, and I've had to replace the washer once, because the seal at the base of the tub sprung a leak. This is such a common problem that there are multiple Youtube videos and repair kits for it. But it's a huge pain; you have to take the machine somewhere you can turn it upside down and disassemble it from the bottom.

lordnacho 5y ago

Which should alarm people more than it does. The signalling value of a brand is greatly diminished when it's just a label that can be moved around, created or hollowed out at will. It's a kind of obfuscation in many cases. How many people know that P&G or Unilever are behind a huge number of supermarket goods?

dmix 5y ago
Saab turned into a Chinese car company then a defence contractor bought it then it kinda just died on the shelf.
klelatti 5y ago
Not sure why the cases you cite are alarming. I actually think there are two levels of signalling in these cases 1. what the brand promises - and the corporate owner will usually want to protect that and 2. The reputation of a P&G or Unilever. I think problems often happen when the big corporate owners sell to private equity who are more often interested in boosting short term earnings.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  1) Multiple brands for one producer: something bad happens, we cut the brand loose, move the staff who caused the problem elsewhere, or replace them, nobody knows. If it's really bad the mother co has enough money to place everything on the brand, with PR. The financial news will know it's P&G or Nestle or whatever, people on the street will see "Something Crunch is unhealthy and is discontinued". 2) Unknown holding company: yes, people can have general knowledge and to a degree it's their own fault for not knowing. But it also isn't, nobody has time to read about what thousands of brands are out there. > I think problems often happen when the big corporate owners sell to private equity who are more often interested in boosting short term earnings. Absolutely. I remember going to Ed's Diner here in the UK. They made a great burger in SoHo before I left the country for a few years. When I came back, they'd expanded across the country, which was a bit surprising to me, but I went in to eat there because of my previous experience. I took one bite, it was terrible, and I immediately told my wife "this tastes like private equity". I go on google, guess what, it was indeed bought by PE and they'd totally changed the burger. This is a form of lying to people that should not be tolerated but of course is a grey zone because it not easy to define when you've changed the burger so much that you can't call it the same thing.