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This could be bad! Giant Car Parts Company That Owns Fram And Raybestos Just Filed For Bankruptcy $2 billion Missing

S

Sam69sat

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Not only are they bankrupt, they've also "lost $2 billion dollars" in cash and now they're under investigation by the doj.

DOJ Opens Probe Into First Brands' Shocking Bankruptcy | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
www.zerohedge.com www.zerohedge.com

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The Giant Car Parts Company That Owns Fram And Raybestos Just Filed For Bankruptcy​


www.theautopian.com

The Giant Car Parts Company That Owns Fram And Raybestos Just Filed For Bankruptcy - The Autopian

First Brands, the owner of auto parts companies like Fram, Trico and Centric, has filed for bankruptcy with debts around $6 billion.
www.theautopian.com www.theautopian.com

If you’ve been working on your own cars for a while, you’re probably familiar with brands you’d find at auto parts stores. Boxes labeled Fram and Centric and Raybestos containing reasonably priced parts fit for daily drivers are staples for regular wrenchers. Well, those brands just hit by a big bow wave, because their owner, First Brands Group, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

First Brands is pretty huge. In addition to owning Fram filters and Raybestos brakes, the group also owns brake brands Centric, Carlson, and International Brake Industries, towing equipment brands Bargman, Bulldog, Draw-Tite, Fulton, Reese, Tekonsha, Wesbar, and the towing division of Westfalia. It also owns windshield wiper brands Anco, and Trico, holds the licence for Michelin wiper blades, owns remanufactured parts giant Cardone, lift support brand Strong-Arm, and the LED division of Philips, along with Airtex, Autolite, Carter, Luberfiner, Hopkins, and Petroclear. If you own an older car with third-party parts on it, there’s a good chance at least one of them was manufactured by or for First Brands.
 
When it first came out " oh no!".. but it'll work out. Too much business to flush down the toilet.
 
Well, when conglomerates buy businesses and businesses get too large, it is not uncommon for the ‘house of cards’ to fall. If a brand is profitable, it will be picked up by someone and hopefully will continue to be part of our hobby. Too often, these large cap holdings are mismanaged by executive administrations only to show profit for their shareholders and they get run into the ground.
 
Yes it's a recurring theme. Good management makes a business a success along with good and valued employees. Then they get swallowed up by a modern overpaid management team who rape the business, destroy the quality and run it into the ground. Happens over and over. It does give opportunity for new businesses to sneak into the void though. Look what's happened to Chrysler corp after Eaton took his cut out of it and MB raped it.
 
I worked for Brake Parts Inc, who owns the Raybestos name, until 2005 when the company started closing down North American manufacturing shortly after getting sold off.
It was part of Echlin when I got hired, and in around '98 Dana bought Echlin. Dana started struggling in the early 2000's when commodity prices went haywire, and they were locked into contracts with the Big 3 that forced them to sell for less than it cost to produce products.
Dana sold off the aftermarket companies in an attempt to stay out of bankruptcy.
I sort of lost track with what was going on with them until hearing about this First Brand collapse and finding they now own Brake Parts. I was surprised to see they owned Centric, I'd bought Centric parts not knowing they were a Brake Parts brand. That happened after I left. I wouldn't buy Raybestos because of being bitter about them laying off me and so many of my colleagues when they moved production mostly to Asia and would have shunned Centric too if I'd known that.
As far as I am concerned, the Raybestos I was proud to be a part of died around 15 years ago when the last plant in the US, in Litchfield IL was closed.
 
A large corporate gobbler who's eaten heretofore quality, profitable businesses and subsequently running them into the ground. Example: where's the competition for a quality product when you own all the wiper blade companies.
 
XS22J8R said:
I worked for Brake Parts Inc, who owns the Raybestos name, until 2005 when the company started closing down North American manufacturing shortly after getting sold off.
It was part of Echlin when I got hired, and in around '98 Dana bought Echlin. Dana started struggling in the early 2000's when commodity prices went haywire, and they were locked into contracts with the Big 3 that forced them to sell for less than it cost to produce products.
Dana sold off the aftermarket companies in an attempt to stay out of bankruptcy.
I sort of lost track with what was going on with them until hearing about this First Brand collapse and finding they now own Brake Parts. I was surprised to see they owned Centric, I'd bought Centric parts not knowing they were a Brake Parts brand. That happened after I left. I wouldn't buy Raybestos because of being bitter about them laying off me and so many of my colleagues when they moved production mostly to Asia and would have shunned Centric too if I'd known that.
As far as I am concerned, the Raybestos I was proud to be a part of died around 15 years ago when the last plant in the US, in Litchfield IL was closed.
Click to expand...
Sadly,,, Echlin always had a good reputation.
 
Sam69sat said:
If you’ve been working on your own cars for a while, you’re probably familiar with brands you’d find at auto parts stores. Boxes labeled Fram and Centric and Raybestos containing reasonably priced parts fit for daily drivers are staples for regular wrenchers. Well, those brands just hit by a big bow wave, because their owner, First Brands Group, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

First Brands is pretty huge. In addition to owning Fram filters and Raybestos brakes, the group also owns brake brands Centric, Carlson, and International Brake Industries, towing equipment brands Bargman, Bulldog, Draw-Tite, Fulton, Reese, Tekonsha, Wesbar, and the towing division of Westfalia. It also owns windshield wiper brands Anco, and Trico, holds the licence for Michelin wiper blades, owns remanufactured parts giant Cardone, lift support brand Strong-Arm, and the LED division of Philips, along with Airtex, Autolite, Carter, Luberfiner, Hopkins, and Petroclear. If you own an older car with third-party parts on it, there’s a good chance at least one of them was manufactured by or for First Brands.
Click to expand...
Damn, I think I've bought from more than half of those brands! But Halloween just won't be the same without Reese's peanut butter cups!
 
Another account of creative book keeping/accounting
keep the leadership pres. or vp/cfo/ceo etc. in suspense...

Someone will buy it if it goes Chapter 13 (China :BangHead: sweep in)
or courts will do a sell off of separate brands, with a trustee
to recoup the funds for debtors

or they (the mother ship) will shoot down their debt, file chapter 7 or 11 (? IIRC)
walk away

shame it came to this

:popcorn:
 
dadsbee said:
Piss in the pot for a conglomerate this big.
Click to expand...
piece of piss.jpg
 
leveraged loans, one part of a company feeding another part through debt. CLOs and a lack of honest transparency and now we see the importance of loan-level scrutiny. See the right hand, never mind the left hand........ It's all fun, till it's not.
 
Runcharger said:
Yes it's a recurring theme. Good management makes a business a success along with good and valued employees. Then they get swallowed up by a modern overpaid management team who rape the business, destroy the quality and run it into the ground. Happens over and over. It does give opportunity for new businesses to sneak into the void though. Look what's happened to Chrysler corp after Eaton took his cut out of it and MB raped it.
Click to expand...
US Steel is now part of the mix again and was bled dry when it was sold to Nippon. Nippon bled it dry under the name National Steel years ago and is back for another round only bigger and more mills.
The retirees got it broke off....!

Brake Parts Co was 25 min from my shack and was a good product till it went south— another .

Look at Chrysler ( Obama mess) it gets passed around like a cheap whore , raped everytime and they wonder why they can’t sell.
 
Hey-O said:
leveraged loans, one part of a company feeding another part through debt. CLOs and a lack of honest transparency and now we see the importance of loan-level scrutiny. See the right hand, never mind the left hand........ It's all fun, till it's not.
Click to expand...
I lived this when the CEO of my corporate employer leveraged the daylights out of the place for the last round of non profitable acquisitions. Then we got hit with a perfect storm of high priced diesel, a low carb diet fad (our primary shippers were bulk flour producers,) and a spike in insurance rates. The loans had a clause where they could be called if the company failed to show a profit in a fiscal year. I took a golden parachute a year before things hit the fan during the dot com crash. Indictments came down because of Federal Railway Administration violations as well. Company bought its way out that for a $1.5 million fine, relatively cheap compared to the operational losses.

For a time, I was slightly bitter over the fact that the company had been approached by Apollo Management, a Wall Street private equity shop that was trying to corner the tank truck industry. The sale could have put $100 million in the owner's pocket, and made every corporate officer rich. Instead, the owner doubled down, and eventually sold off half the company in Chapter 11. I came to terms with it eventually, and found out I could survive just fine as a truck driver again.
 
WOW, had no clue First Brands owned and operated that many auto products companies, and yes, most of us have purchased some from all those companies. As XS stated, I bet the majority of those companies have moved production to an Asian country. And with the new tariffs in place many will have to make a choice, spend money to move back home or permanently shut down operations. Bankrupt companies don't have much "relocation" money available. I see some major shortages for us modifiers and maintainers in the near future.
 
Yeah I lost a billion the other day.

Luckily I found it in my jeans pocket id put it in the laundry pile.

Always check those pockets!

( Actually it was $12.37 but I'm really frugal)
 
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