Elektron acquired by Bonnier Capital

The Lounge General Discussion
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*Bonnier enshitification laugh

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Oh no! It seems I have also been acquired by Bonnier Capital! This sucks!

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90

youā€™re f**ked mate :slight_smile:

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i wonder how this compares to when Elektron got a large investment by Arctos Equity

this is arguably much worse since the entire company got acquired?

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Watch your beer! Theyā€™re going to try and strip you for parts.

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ā€œLife is good!ā€ ā„¢ - Bonnier Capital

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Hello, Sonicware, Erica, Dirtywave, Beetlecrab, 1010 (Polyend?). I am suddenly interested in your stuff.

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Not if I drink it all first! Iā€™ll show them!

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what a shameā€¦

i hope we will not see drastic changes like it happened with Moog and Native Instrumentsā€¦

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In no time they demand bigger gains and sell it without any staff currently working on the toysā€¦

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A big part of the appeal is that Elektron felt independent and progressive. I canā€™t see how thatā€™s going to work future wise when you have some big corporate creaming back ALL the profits.

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Could be fine, and Iā€™m sure this is an example of some kind of bias, but every PE acquisition Iā€™ve ever known about resulted in at least one aspect of a thing I love becoming worse.

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101

Two things that confuse me:

Bonnierā€™s own site says they acquired a majority stake, not own the company 100%. Not sure if it makes any difference or if Iā€™m just ignorant?

I thought the Berlin office died ages ago when Cenk left and Covid destroyed live music for a while. Is it still a thing or just some PO Box somewhere?

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Which would you rather be, a company that gets acquired to get out of debt and expand so that you can make the Unique brand of synths that you would like to make

orā€¦

the company that makes unique wonderful sampling groove boxes that people canā€™t resist purchasing to get out of debt and expand so that you could make the wonderful unique synths that you love to make?

I know what the answer would be if it were meā€¦ make more sampling groove boxes.

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My understanding is, if someone/something owns the majority of shares in a company (51% +), then they get to call the shots. I could be wrong. Maybe someone more knowledgable about finance and corporate structure can enlighten us?

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Great. Canā€™t wait until they start tweaking the forum.

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I hate hearing about things like this. Now, itā€™s all about numbers. Iā€™m trying to think of one instance where a sell-out ended up being good.

Iā€™m guessing they drop a few poor performing products and concentrate on making their machines easier to operate and more accessible by reducing costs. Great way to reduce cost is to reduce workforce and to outsource current workload to cheapest labor markets.

There will be more machines coming but the complexity will be gone. OT3 will be similar to a new Chevy Blazer as opposed to the old square body Chevy Blazer. Chevy makes a Blazer according to Chevy. Butā€¦

You acquire to make money. All products that survive this initially will then be analyzed wire by wire to see where cheaper alternatives can be used. To find the little places where the previous owners over spent.

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Call me a simpleton, but in my experience things are rarely improved when suits enter the equation.

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Soā€¦I guess that means no update for the SidStation, right?

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