First Brands Bankruptcy - some of our car parts included
 

First Brands (Private Equity firm) bought a bunch of car part suppliers.....

Fram, Anco, Raybestoes, Cardone to name a few.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/firs...-car-truck-suv

Everywhere you look money is a dire issue, every country, every state, every county, every city, One common issue , Central Bank system its crashing.

Yeah, mostly (to me) private equity buyouts and mergers usually means Wall Street is going to cash in and destroy the companies in their fold.

NY Times did a good story a year or two ago about Red Lobster chain. All the companies that bought it, screwed everyone.

Seeing the same thing happening in car parts. This is just one example. Look at Edelbrock and Comp Cams. I waited over a year
for a Edelbrock trans controller. At the Detroit Auto Show last year, guys from Edelbrock booth seemed to care less about anything.

To me, kinda just buying time.

I was never a fan of the global supply chain, sure won't get fixed anytime soon.......

First Brands has allot of product in their portfolio. The one that probably slips under the radar but will effect the most people is A1 Cordone. Not that well recognized, but they supply ALL the rebuilt parts for NAPA, ORiely's, Advanced Auto Parts, KOI, Auto Zone and others. They are a Single Source supplier for water pumps, alternators, Starters, Steering Racks, Steering pumps, Master Cylinders, Boosters, Drive Axle shafts and more. They are huge. Even though almost all their stuff is garbage, many, many people depend on their crap to keep their daily drivers on the road. If they completely go away, wrecking yard prices on all those parts will go up substantially.
My guess is some other "distressed goods", investment group will buy First Brands for pennies on the dollar and run what's left of them into the ground over the next 5-7 years. Time will tell.

Won't miss Fram, won't miss Anco. Raybestos will be a loss. Cardone may or may not be a loss.

Well, they've been selling total garbage to the consumers for the last ten years, maybe that's why they went broke. The restocking or disposal of massive amounts returned garbage is probably quite expensive.

If there is a market for the parts, someone will fill that market, might be a bit more expensive, but I'd pay more for parts that aren't absolute junk.

Yea all the rebuilt parts here are A1 Cardone. And Raybestos is a good brand for brake stuff.
I am sure a lot will get picked up and outsourced to China.

.
Dang. Raybestos I will miss, use a bunch of their' stuff, there pads almost exclusively.

.

I think Cardone has most of their work done in Mexico. Not sure about that though. Love them or hate them, FRAM is the #1 filter brand as far as sales. Autolite has been around for almost 100 years. I think many of these brands will live on in some form or another. Mostly living off their name and former reputation. Products may have no correlation to their former selves.

Hopefully the NOS Energy drink remains available forever.... I understand it's owned by a different group

NOS
 

Last few years I ave enjoyed scouring WWW and eBay
For NOS items for my bird. I am not worried about paying a bit more
If I have the right part the first time.
Seems like every time a great deal saved me a few bucks it then bit
Me in the ass later.

Gerry.

Raybestos parts are already produced in China.

It’s unfortunate but it’s happening more and more, generally the brands will get spun off and sold to another manufacturer. Being in the industry and knowing people who are potentially losing their jobs it’s never good when we see something like this but as I mentioned, it’s happening more and more now. Private equity is the driver but also the only ones who can afford these colossal brands so the game will continue on.

Fram and Autolite have been bought and sold a bunch of times throughout their life. Brief, possibly incomplete history of Autolite. 1911-1960 independent company. 1961 bought by Ford. 1973 bought by Bendix, became Bendix, FRAM, Autolite. 1980 bought by Allied Signal. 1999 All of them bought by Honeywell. 2011 bought by the Rank Group equity firm then sold to First Brands. 2025 First Brands bankrupts them. We have the largest FRAM domestic plant a few miles from where I live in Greenville, OH. They recently completed a huge expansion almost doubling their production capacity. They also make a ton of private label filters there. Future is uncertain of course now. Autolite has been making the majority of their spark plugs in China and Mexico for a long time. Once a private equity firm buys a legacy brand or group of brands, nothing good happens from that time forward. I just think of it as a slow liquidation of product and assets. Every now and then one of the brands is split off and can survive as an independent once again. But that's rare.

When I started working in product development, we were educated on the importance of treating our supply chain ethically. The corporate policy was literally to recognize every supplier as critical to our success and was only going to be there if they made a reasonable profit. We made sure the suppliers succeeded.

When I retired, the definition of "good business" had changed to stripping everything possible from the supplier and believing they were doing the same to us.

Somewhere in between, private equity and massive industry consolidation happened.

Ethics were replaced by extortion, coercion, and the pursuit of exorbitant wealth for those running the companies. Employees went from being assets to liabilities.

I'm glad I got to experience that extinct better business world and I'm grateful for being paid by many employers but yes, I am now cynical about all this.

Thankfully, this hobby helps me feel better about the world.

Filing for chapter 11 does not mean they are going out of business or the brands and parts will disappear.

True, but I'd hazard a guess the $500M the court approved to restructure and fix the company will get pissed away in short order.

Private equity is there to make money at the expense of the companies they buy, not to make anything better.

In my opinion, greed, greed and more greed.

Another trade group I belong to, we had a member from FRAM. Long time ago they saw the wrong direction FRAM was going.

They committed themselves to Made in America and high quality products.

Another member noted they are expanding there plant again in Ohio. My guess is most of these companies get sold or gutted and the equity
parent either sells them off to more private equity buddies - or everything goes down the toilet.

In the back of my mind, I'd say this is a huge push to the repair industry to get pushed aside.

The OEM's are doing as good job at it. Could have sworn in the last 10 years GM said the repair world was a $1.5T market, and they wanted to control all of it.

I think they are doing a good job with modern cars, we're close behind.

It isn't good news, that's for sure.

There will be significant pressure to cheapen the product(s) and raise prices.

Anything made in the USA will move to China. Anything made in China will move to Vietnam, or some other hell-hole with lower tariffs.

WE NEED HIGHER TARIFFS.

Some or all of those changes may come to pass but as long as the brand names and products have value they likely continue. Quality might change but seems most of the manufacturing costs have already been sucked out. Most people like cheaper stuff so that is what gets delivered.