6 ms·

Please illuminate us. How is this misinformed?

hef19898 3y ago
A profitable company is hardly a failure. Or maybe it is, after all HN is more into VC-miney-burning-to-buy-wannabe-monopoly "tech" start-ups.
kranke155 3y ago
Top comment said the company was a failure. Doesn´t seem to be the case, since the company was clearly profitable.
- verdverm 3y ago
  Shrinking and laying off workers is rarely seen as successful. You can play games and look/stay profitable all the while the real story is far from it. Success is typically seen as something that is improving, whether profit or market share. Shrinking while still remaining profitable sits in a more gray zone. I think most don't see this as successful, but I wouldn't call it a complete failure either, unless you consider selling a local company to a foreign company a failure.
  - caycep 3y ago
    is the reason for the sale mostly due to corp management profit min/maxing then?
    - verdverm 3y ago
      Their fiduciary duty is to the investors first afaiui, perhaps they saw that selling to someone who can run the company better as a net benefit overall? I've heard Japanese steel is pretty great, or at least a common sentiment
      - FredPret 3y ago
        Japan supplied sub-par metal for decades and lied about it. Aluminum, copper and steel. Something to think about next time you get anywhere near a car, train, airplane, skyscraper, or bridge. https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/16/news/companies/kobe-steel-scandal-what-we-know/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/16/news/companies/kobe-steel-s...
        verdverm 3y ago
        I hoped someone would have additional data to add, thanks! Is a scandal at one company evidence for the entire industry in a country? Is there similar information about other Japanese companies? What about the industry at large? The prevailing sentiment is that Chinese steel has similar issues.
        graphe 3y ago
        It is when it's as big as Rockefeller oil. It's like finding out TSMC makes chips that degrade suddenly.
        FredPret 3y ago
        Good questions - I certainly hope not!
        fomine3 3y ago
        NS faked too https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14617459 https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14617459
        riversflow 3y ago
        As someone who was in the Aluminum business during that time, this is a lot more complicated than it might appear. There was an absolutely insane amount of fraud being committed in the industrial aluminum biz during this time, here’s an article[1], but a lot of my experience isn’t really documented online or has been lost. What made this really troublesome was that ingots aren’t really sold direct to customers, so often times you have a contractor or sub contractor buying extrusions ($xxxxx)from a megacorp like SAPA(an extruder) who in turn is buying from a metal market($M+). The extruders doesn’t want to deal with material defects from Aluminum that was supposed to be to spec, and their customers can’t really play hardball as the industry is pretty niche-extrusion presses are capital intensive and require a fair amount of sophistication to operate. They were probably being compelled to do that because of the vast amounts of fraud committed by Chinese Aluminum producers. The purity issue was so bad my anodizing shop started recommending our customers demand mil certs from a reputable manufacturer, like Alcoa or Kaiser, and then specifically clarifying to the extruder that they intended to anodize it; being a chemical process anodizing is very dependent on the metal’s makeup and the extruder knows this. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-fraud-idUSKCN1UQ238/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-fraud-idUSKCN1U...

hef19898 3y ago

A profitable company is hardly a failure. Or maybe it is, after all HN is more into VC-miney-burning-to-buy-wannabe-monopoly "tech" start-ups.

kranke155 3y ago

Top comment said the company was a failure. Doesn´t seem to be the case, since the company was clearly profitable.

verdverm 3y ago
Shrinking and laying off workers is rarely seen as successful. You can play games and look/stay profitable all the while the real story is far from it. Success is typically seen as something that is improving, whether profit or market share. Shrinking while still remaining profitable sits in a more gray zone. I think most don't see this as successful, but I wouldn't call it a complete failure either, unless you consider selling a local company to a foreign company a failure.
- caycep 3y ago
  is the reason for the sale mostly due to corp management profit min/maxing then?
  - verdverm 3y ago
    Their fiduciary duty is to the investors first afaiui, perhaps they saw that selling to someone who can run the company better as a net benefit overall? I've heard Japanese steel is pretty great, or at least a common sentiment
    - FredPret 3y ago
      Japan supplied sub-par metal for decades and lied about it. Aluminum, copper and steel. Something to think about next time you get anywhere near a car, train, airplane, skyscraper, or bridge. https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/16/news/companies/kobe-steel-scandal-what-we-know/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/16/news/companies/kobe-steel-s...
      - verdverm 3y ago
        I hoped someone would have additional data to add, thanks! Is a scandal at one company evidence for the entire industry in a country? Is there similar information about other Japanese companies? What about the industry at large? The prevailing sentiment is that Chinese steel has similar issues.
        graphe 3y ago
        It is when it's as big as Rockefeller oil. It's like finding out TSMC makes chips that degrade suddenly.
        FredPret 3y ago
        Good questions - I certainly hope not!
        fomine3 3y ago
        NS faked too https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14617459 https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14617459
      - riversflow 3y ago
        As someone who was in the Aluminum business during that time, this is a lot more complicated than it might appear. There was an absolutely insane amount of fraud being committed in the industrial aluminum biz during this time, here’s an article[1], but a lot of my experience isn’t really documented online or has been lost. What made this really troublesome was that ingots aren’t really sold direct to customers, so often times you have a contractor or sub contractor buying extrusions ($xxxxx)from a megacorp like SAPA(an extruder) who in turn is buying from a metal market($M+). The extruders doesn’t want to deal with material defects from Aluminum that was supposed to be to spec, and their customers can’t really play hardball as the industry is pretty niche-extrusion presses are capital intensive and require a fair amount of sophistication to operate. They were probably being compelled to do that because of the vast amounts of fraud committed by Chinese Aluminum producers. The purity issue was so bad my anodizing shop started recommending our customers demand mil certs from a reputable manufacturer, like Alcoa or Kaiser, and then specifically clarifying to the extruder that they intended to anodize it; being a chemical process anodizing is very dependent on the metal’s makeup and the extruder knows this. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-fraud-idUSKCN1UQ238/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-fraud-idUSKCN1U...