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Thor acquires Jayco


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I am sort of surprised by that Jayco seemed to be doing very well on their own. Thor owns many brands and they usually let them alone.

Helen and I are long timers ..08 F-350 Ford,LB,CC,6.4L,4X4, Dually,4:10 diff dragging around a 2013 Montana 3402 Big Sky

SKP 100137. North Ridgeville, Ohio in the summer, sort of and where ever it is warm in the winter.

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I am sort of surprised by that Jayco seemed to be doing very well on their own. Thor owns many brands and they usually let them alone.

Rich it will be interesting to see what Thor does with JayCo. Interesting times.

Trailer: Montana 5th wheel, model 3582Rl, model year 2012

 

Truck: Ford 450 PSD Super Duty, 2002 Crew Cab, Long bed, 4:88 rear end, last of the 7.3 engines, Automatic Transmission.

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Not long ago Thor bought Airstream and there were concerns. So too with Mobile Suites. But so far, I haven't heard of any real complaints about the change in ownership.

Rick & Mary Sorensen

Molly - Boston Terrier

2016 Ford F350 DRW 6.8 L diesel

2016 Mobile Suites 36RSSDB3

Full Timers w/ SD Residency

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Not long ago Thor bought Airstream and there were concerns.

From the history of Thor Industries..........

"Thor Industries, Inc. was founded on August 29, 1980, when Wade F. B. Thompson and Peter Busch Orthwein acquired Airstream. The name "Thor" combined the first two letters of each entrepreneur's name."

 

A bit more than a few years ago and there were periods when the quality and support reputation were very poor. More recently the company seems to have an improving reputation and Airstream seems to as well. It must have something going for it since it is one of the most expensive (if not the most expensive) travel trailer on the market.

Good travelin !...............Kirk

Full-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.
Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure

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It will be interesting to see how having the high end motor home line, Entegra will fit in with Thor's other Class A products. A few years ago they bought the Damon line, and while the names of products have changed, the middling quality of the motor homes seems to have remained static. My personal experience with mega companies purchasing smaller rivals has been that the employees and products tend to suffer.

oRV

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2010 Phaeton 40 QTH

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It will be interesting to see how having the high end motor home line, Entegra will fit in with Thor's other Class A products. A few years ago they bought the Damon line, and while the names of products have changed, the middling quality of the motor homes seems to have remained static. My personal experience with mega companies purchasing smaller rivals has been that the employees and products tend to suffer.

 

 

I've also seen this over the years, but I've also seen a COE and Board of Directors wanting to know how come one Operational Entity/Division consistently has higher profit margins then others. When this happens, and a good CEO and Board of Directors want to maximize profits, not just for the company and stock holders if public - but also because typically officers receive certain perks based upon performance. I watch this happen when a small $1B a year Aerospace company was bought in the mid 90's by a mega corporation. After 3-4 years of this newly acquired business having profit margins and ROI's X's 3, 4 and in one case 5 times higher then other operational groups - the CEO had all of the segment presidents in for a chat. They were give three years to send in teams to the smaller unit, and look for the best practices between what/how they were operating. Within 5 years, all but one of the other operational groups/company segments, had improved their Profit Margins, ROI's. They had better quality controls, happier customer relations, and also had fostered stronger relationships with their suppliers.

 

Not the norm, but sometimes these things happen. An example in the RV industry, is seen when Berkshire took over Forrest River. FR makes a better designed, and built, product then they did prior to be purchased.

 

Fingers crossed for Jayco, I liked how when they took over Travel Supreme, the birth of Entegra was the result.

 

Time will tell:)!

Smitty

Be safe, have fun,

Smitty

04 CC Allure "RooII" - Our "E" ride for life!

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Forest River is far more than just an RV builder and they were so well before the Berkshire takeover. The original Forest River RVs were basically the line of the former Cobra RV, such as Salem, Sierra, Sandpiper, Wildwood, Rockwood, & Flagstaff. By the time that Berkshire bought them out they were also building several lines of cargo trailers, boats, buses and other commercial vehicles. While they have continued to expand since the Berkshire takeover, I'm not sure that there is a great deal of similarity to Thor Industries.

 

Thor did at one time have a bus manufacturing division, they sold that off to Allied Specialty Vehicles in order to concentrate on the RV business.

Good travelin !...............Kirk

Full-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.
Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure

            images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqFswi_bvvojaMvanTWAI

 

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Not long ago Thor bought Airstream and there were concerns. So too with Mobile Suites. But so far, I haven't heard of any real complaints about the change in ownership.

Not correct. See the link below. Thor was created in 1980 to purchase Airstream.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Industries

 

Thompson and Orthwein purchased Airstream from Beatrice for no money down. Within 18 months they had paid off the loan from Beatrice.

 

Thor has been extremely successful because they have allowed each of its companies to operate independently.

Dave

2008 Airstream 34’ Classic Trailer

Dodge Ram 2500 Cummins CTD

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Makes me nervous for the remaining independents and any startups. Even if the Thor subsidiaries retain independence there must be some efficiency gained or they would not be doing the merger. Seems like an awful lot of consolidation in the industry and I prefer competition in this type of market. I am wondering whether operations like Northwood (Arctic Fox) and the new Augusta can hold their own. Fingers crossed.

Dave and Lana Hasper

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Howdy Smitty,

 

Not the norm, but sometimes these things happen. An example in the RV industry, is seen when Berkshire took over Forrest River. FR makes a better designed, and built, product then they did prior to be purchased.

This is *very* interesting information. We looked at some Forest River units when we started to plan for our (yet unbought) 5thWheel in 2011, but discarded them early due to a perceived lack of quality. So they have improved as of late? How would you compare them with similarly priced units from Jayco, Heartland and Northwood (our current brand shortlist)?

 

Cheers,

--

Vall.

Getting ready to join the RV full-time lifestyle in 2017!

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Vail - My input on Forrest River is second hand mostly from a gent that traded in an earlier model for a newer and larger model. He was the one that gave me his opinion that it was a better built unit, and the the materials choices were better to. It was higher up FR's food chain, so that could be the reason for the better material choices inside.

 

I'm also more in tune with Class A's. I've been helping my BIL as he gets ready to buy a 5th. So the last two years I've been watching and talking to others about fiver's. (He needs to sale his fishing boat now. And has a hard length limit of 30', but his looking mostly at the 27-28' measured length. And has a budget that he does not wish to stretch too far:)!)

 

His current front runner is an older Arctic Fox (Northwood), all weather Special Edition Silver Fox. With Alpenlite (WRV) as a close second. I believe Thor bought Heartland about 5-7 years ago. As mentioned in this thread, Thor usually leaves acquired entities to themselves. Heartland has many loyal owners, and in my 'perception' rating, I'd put their higher models very close to the Arctic Fox of say 2001-2004 era. Though Jayco cranks out lots of products, and have been family run for many years, I've not looked too close tat them. So I'll not give an opinion on them.

 

One other opinion, again second hand, is from another friend looking for 5th/Toy box combinations. He also felt that Forrest River had a cleaner design then he had seen before. (He did not say if this was just a Fiver, or not. It was after he went to one of this mega RV shows they have in Southern California.)

 

Good luck on your hunt!!!

Smitty

Be safe, have fun,

Smitty

04 CC Allure "RooII" - Our "E" ride for life!

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Remember back in 2007 etc when the economy collapsed the Rv industry took a big hit and many of the independent manufacturers

went belly up. Consolidation may be a way to reduce that risk in the future.

Helen and I are long timers ..08 F-350 Ford,LB,CC,6.4L,4X4, Dually,4:10 diff dragging around a 2013 Montana 3402 Big Sky

SKP 100137. North Ridgeville, Ohio in the summer, sort of and where ever it is warm in the winter.

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I am wondering whether operations like Northwood (Arctic Fox) and the new Augusta can hold their own. Fingers crossed.

Actually, it isn't always a case of financial difficulties that causes a smaller company to be sold to one of the bigger ones and this kind of thing has been going on for many years and in every type of market. One of the more common causes of such consolidation is when one of the family owned RV manufacturers with a long track record of quality products with good sales and solid profitability chooses to retire and none of the family members is interested in taking over, or they don't have the capital to do so. When that happens the company is quietly marketed to those who the owners feel have the capital to pay their price. A very good example of that would be Teton which as a tremendously successful business as long as the founding partners were in it. But when they chose to retire they put it on the market and after only a few years the company closed the doors.

 

Yet another cause is when the founding generation of a business chooses to step down and turn things over the the next generation. Very often the younger family members have dreams of grandeur and rapidly expand the company into new lines and do so too rapidly or abandon the marketing plan that built the business and so in time are forced to sell out in order to survive.

 

The fact is that if we wish the smaller business to continue to exist, we must be willing to pay a little more to get that personal touch as it is very difficult for the small RV builder of business of any type to compete with the largest businesses, due to what the financial folks call 'economies of scale."

Good travelin !...............Kirk

Full-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.
Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure

            images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqFswi_bvvojaMvanTWAI

 

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