I used to work for that company writing collision manuals... about 18 years. It has an interesting story behind it:
Glenn Mitchell was a parts guy at a Chrysler dealership, and he was the liaison for local body shops. He would create a "parts list" for body components: hood, grille, fenders, bumpers, etc. and they included the prices. After a while, other body shops began asking for lists for their cars, too. So the company was formed in about 1946 creating collision guides that had parts and prices, and eventually labor times to replace the parts - and the Collision Estimating Guide was created.
Mitchell was bought by Cordura Publishing in the 1970s (I think) and later was bought by Thomson Publishing Group of the United Kingdom, a company that had very deep pockets. Thomson Publishing was also into finance, and owned the largest newspaper publisher in the US.
When I hired on in 1989, they had a 67% market share over the three other companies that wrote collision guides: Motor Manuals (print only), CCC (electronic only - they acquired their data from Motor Manuals and converted to electronic), and ADP Collision (Audatex - electronic only). Mitchell was the only company that had both print and electronic estimating, and they also had flat rate labor guides (Mitchell Manuals) that many shops and dealerships used.
In the late 1990s, Snap-On Tools purchased Mitchell Manuals, and the remaining part of the company was sold off to investors as Thomson Publishing was getting out of print and expanding their financial operations here in the US. Mitchell no longer had those deep pockets, and products began to suffer, and quality was suffering as well. They began to try to put out products faster with fewer people, and that 67% market share dwindled down to the point where Mitchell was no longer on top.
One of their acquisitions was Solera Company, and along with it came their CEO, Tony Aquila, who didn't see eye to eye with Mitchell's CEO at the time, Jim Lindner. Before long, there was dissention among the upper management: who are you siding with, Jim or Tony? Someone had to go, and Tony was given the boot, which kinda pissed him off. So Tony set a plan in motion to try to put Mitchell out of business. Mitchell, at that time, was making about $260,000,000/year, gross.
Tony had some seriously deep pockets, as well, and in 2004 acquired a loan of about $900,000,000 and purchased Audatex. Then his plan started steamrolling, and he moved their offices from the Bay Area to a location about 8 miles up the road from Mitchell International - and he began recruiting Mitchell employees. I watched a manager in my department depart with 8 employees, who were all made promises about salary and telecommuting. More Mitchell employees were leaving left and right, and at one point I heard it was about 36 employees had left.
They had even tried to outsource to India, which was a huge mistake. Mitchell used to boast about the decades of experience its collision editorial staff possessed, they paid for our ICAR and ASE certification classes and sent us to LA Auto Show to gather information so we could be the first to acquire new info. To think the CEO, Lindner, thought that some random person in India who has never touched a car could do a better job than people who have been in the industry their entire lives was a joke. Lindner apologized for his assumption, but it didn't stop him from trying to outsource jobs.
Eventually, Audatex employees left as the promises they were made didn't hold up, and some went back to Mitchell. Mitchell tried concocting a plan to join forces with CCC, creating CCC/Mitchell, as CCC was the bigger of the two collision giants. But this merger was stopped by the FTC because it would have effectively put Motor Manuals out of business (CCC would be able to get it's data from Mitchell), and would have likely put Audatex out of business.
When I left Mitchell in 2010, they were struggling to be #3 out of the 4 companies that created collision estimating data, always coming up with excuses as to why the other 3 had information published faster. I was a higher paid employee and was laid off so they could bring in younger kids out of school to do the same job for half the pay. I lost out on some great benefits, but no longer cared about the company, and am in a much better place today than I was then.
In 2013, Mitchell was purchased from Aurora Capital by KKR & Co LP, a private equity firm, for $1.1 billion. I still have friends who work there... as well as a few enemies.
