The equity firm that owns Edelbrock has acquired Comp and all the companies they own. Not a good thing.

http://www.competitionplus.com/drag-racing/news/edelbrock-purchases-comp-cams

Why not a good thing?

Well one reason is that when say edelbrock buys Comp Cams and they have competing products like say Fuel Injection. One often times goes away. Edelbrock is already moving into the Olive Branch MS Comp facility.
Todd

I would rather see them get bought out than go under. Over they years Comp has produced a lot of good products and it would be a shame to see those products go away.

All about the money. Equity firms don't care about any of the reasons these companies were started in a 2 car garage by real racers. Money spent on innovation, R&D, invention, is wasted. Products are judged solely on profitability. Edelbrock is not the same after being taken over and I heard of bad things going on there now at PRI.

I see it in other old iconic companies in other industries I have an interest in. Everything becomes secondary to ROE.

True. As of few years ago, Edelbrock is a just a name. The owners are Industrial Opportunity Partners (IOP), a private equity firm. I can guarantee they are not going to be so concerned about Made in the USA, the engineering and innovation, the history and vision of the Edelbrock family.

What catalog items for the less popular applications are being discontinued? Stuff that real racers, Mopar, Ferd and Pontiac may be interested in?

I see it in the firearms industry. Old iconic companies, known for innovation, quality products and reflecting the personalities of the founders - micro-managed, processed and procedured, bean counted, consolidated and finally gutted to death.

What I see from this is that CA government has chased another good U.S manufacturer out of CA
Does Comp still own Lunati?

Link to current thread on Speed-Talk: https://www.speed-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=59931

The last couple of pages are where the topic of what's happened at Edelbrock since their takeover (hint: no more R&D budget).

Yep.

Edelbrock is NOT buying Comp. Edelbrock was purchased by a private equity firm, Industrial Opportunity Partners, that same firm has now purchased Comp. If anyone familiar with private equity firms and how they operate would understand this is likely in the long run NOT a good thing. Many if not most the good folks from Cmp have already left to other companies, Bullet etc..For those not in the know companies like this generally buy up companies to break them up and sell the off, the only thing they are interested in is making money from the deal. Hopefully not the case here but they are not the only ones. Peterson Spring(PAC's parent company)was also bought out by a private equity firm not long ago.

That means no more innovation. Good people "downsized". Engineers have been shown the door. Guys who were working on stuff that people reading this are likely interested in. Any one hired to replace them will likely be H-1B scabs who know jackcrap about what they are working on. Tech people who you used to talk to are replaced by minimum wage McDonalds rejects reading from a script on a computer screen - don't bother, you're already smarter than them.

When one group of people own it all, competition goes out the door. No competition, no smart people left in the building, accountants making the decisions = no innovation, no R&D, no non-GM development, a bunch of crap being made offshore, hardcore race parts being left behind.

I'd consider going back to work if one of the private equity firms wanted to give me a call. I understand the automotive market space better than most private equity firms and I have the finance background to work private equity. There is a lot of inefficiency in the automotive aftermarket so there is money to be made for everyone by combining firms. The downside of course is that if the private equity guys are just trying to squeeze money out of the deal then they can hurt more than help. That has happened a lot over the years. The company gets squeezed so tight they lose the talent and then they lose the competitive edge. It is one thing to combine all the back office stuff (advertising, marketing, accounting, shipping, procurement, etc.), it is another thing to shut down R&D and ship production to China and hope the customers don't notice.

Someone needs to buy all NOS Comp Cam stock.
I'll bet within a year when you need that SBM 268 Extrema cam, it will be a Edelabrock Chevy cam lobe cut.

XE 268 already is a Chevy lobe.

private equity isn't the devil by definition. Having worked for 2 companies that were PE owned in the last 7 years, I saw a lot of investment in product (software here, not physical items) and back office in order to create the value they were looking for. It's not all just trying to squeeze blood from a stone.

And I have never seen any of these deals work out in any kind of positive way.
But your mileage may vary.
I see this as being very bad..........especially for customer service and off brand customers.
R&D ?
That covers a lot of private equity firms...............Rich and Detached.

Plenty of smart people left from the companies in question and it looks like product being discontinued and/or consolidated as well. I'll believe it's all for the best when I see it.

Many Hi Po companies that made good parts have been acquired by a bunch of different investors in the last 30 Yrs Like Harvey Crane buying out Cam Dynamics, B&M being bought out by one its competitor, Moroso being bought and so on
We don't have to like it but we will have to deal with it, huh

I'm not a fan of everything that happens with the government in my fine state, but Where in the hell does this have anything to do with the government? This is a corporate takeover by a Vulture Capital group.They are going to do what they always do, consolidate- read fire or chase off anyone who knows how to run the business, borrow heavily on the assets, send any manufacturing to the cheapest bidder, then when it's a bare carcass declare bankruptcy.

I saw a post from Billy Godbolt who the chief cam designer at COMP for twenty five years.

He shared that he had a lot of anxiety for the last several weeks about this acquisition.

However he is okay with it now and thinks things will be fine going forward. He said the new owners have already written checks for some expensive "toys" they will use in testing.

Let's hope that continues to hold.

These type of deals seem to become more common as owners age. They can be almost a necessity for some to do reasonable estate planning.