Hot off Drag Racing On Line web site, Holley is in deep financial problems, AGAIN, but will reorganize. Now we're talking a seriously large company folks with thousands of jobs. Let's pray that the powers at the top can work out their $$$$$ problems.
How in the heck can holley be going under????? The vast majority of their products have been produced for decades and should be almost total profit due to engineering & tooling being paid for, plus all that time to streamline manufacturing.
Hasn't their production already moved to China, maybe 5 years ago or so?? Also, they are descended from a huge company serving the OEM market...it is probably hard to make a good little company out of a big one. The big market for carbs is utterly gone, and non-enthusiast cras with carbs are 99% gone too, so no normal replacement market. They don't seem to have the imagination to hop into new niches (like the sudden uptick of interest in the 94!), and the only market remaining is rodders who fear computers and racing venues in which equipment rules are set in 1969. Their cl***ic performance line of carbs has been greatly updated...but unfortunately not by them, but by that new company building carbs with Holley 4150 architecture...Demon or something?
Not just E'brock, look at the number of rodders going to carbs like Demons. Holleys are great carbs, and they're all I use, but they have to compete with more modern tech in carbs, not to mention EFI getting bigger by the day.
Unfortunately this has been on the cards for some time and I would not be surprised if they do go down. With all the rumors and problems you hear about, it really boils down to a lot of these companies having the rug pulled from under them on their bank loans. This is being perpetrated by the very same banks who are being bailed out for billions by the taxpayer, who are then holding onto and secretly hoarding taxpayer money and allowing manufacturing industries to collapse. Okay for the banks to be rescued, but not for manufacturing companies (unless you are GM or Chrysler). What is wrong with this picture?
What Drag Racing Online actually said: "Rumors of Holley’s death are greatly exaggerated The Internet bulletin boards are rife with the rumor that the Holley company. which has gone through some tough times recently including filing for bankruptcy protection, is closing its doors permanently. A call to Holley from DRO got the news that the company is indeed not closing but re-organizing under bankruptcy rules again and paying off some of their outstanding debt with shares of the Holley Company. DRO’s parent company, Racing Net Source LLC, has taken a contract from Holley for advertising with no pre-conditions for the rest of this year. “What all of us in this industry need to do is reach out and help our peers whenever and however we can until the economy gets back on its feet. Losing jobs and a company like Holley is unacceptable,” said Racing Net Source CEO Jeff Burk."
YEp. Exactly. They need to get brave and stride firmly into the past! OEM gone. Replacement market about gone. Only old (and retro) people building rods haven't gone to FI, younger fans going straight to FI, FI getting cheaper and more accepted. Racing will eventually update with the world, and suddenly Holley will disappear from the dragstrip and circle track. Half of their own niche moved over to new clones like Demon... Their new niche would have to be RETRO. Bring back the 94. Package the four barrels for '60's looking applications. Bring out good hardware lines for multi carb setups. Explore all the needs if retro fossil fuel systems...reading all the despairing threads RIGHT HERE about bad pumps, fuel pressure, ****py linkage, having to fabricate and hunt for the simplest components, suggests a dozen new product lines...for us. We are the only folks stuck to carburetors, and the younger HAMBers are the only people on the planet under 50 who are learning about carbs! They have utterly failed at FI and in the OEM market...their only possible fuure lies in the PAST, right here!
Holley is highly active in late model markets too, and I think they will turn a corner. They are a market leader in LSX - LS1 parts for example.
So...imagine my new Holley Co. They reexamine their carb lineup, and manifolds and valvecovers, in light of the needs of the past. They produce proper pressure regular and electric pumps for wierd old stuff. They dump their hardware line, which is now firmly based on the needs of 1979 Camaro owners, and establish a new line of quality linkage and fuel handling stuff replicating Eelco at its peak. Punch out of the markets that are shriveling AND changing over to non-Holley suppliers at the same time, and jump into a new market that is happily marching into the past... Hey, what would it take to buy a majority of Holley? Twelve or fifteen bucks??
I'll be the first to admit I don't keep track of all the goings on in the performance world. With that said, I brought up the Holley Corp. web site and low and behold Holley has purchased many companies to diversify the products well beyond just Carbs. The companies under the Holley umbrella are NOS, Weiand, Earls, ****** and Flotech. With just about all intake, plumbing and exhaust in there, it looks like there's bigger issues as Bruce suggested than just the shrinking carb business.
No doubt there are bigger issues here - you should hear the soap opera about the Holley buyout! I'm still pissed about them discontinuing the Weiand 7503 intake after the buyout... as are other 318 Poly people. There's a few threads around here if you look about Holley and bankruptcy. ~Jason
A few years back some folks forgot that the automotive aftermarket is a small business industry. So "investor groups" started buying up companies and trying to run them like big corporations (economies of scale i.e. layoffs and Chinese manufacturing) - the Holley, Weiand, Lakewood, etc. merger headed south almost immediately. I've been told Crane Cams locked the plant doors this week too. There will be others. This economy alone won't kill well run businesses, but it's the final nail in the coffin of shaky ones.
I know Lunati Cams is no longer part of Holley, I think Ultradyne bought them and they are back to making good cams like they used to. Ironically Joe Lunati was the R&D for Harvey Crane, which Crane is now in trouble. I hope we can pull them through. Its a shame the big auto companies are getting bailouts to build cars more like their foreign counterparts while American icons that originally improved the breed are going under. Off the soap box, I dont want to get this thread closed.
The problem is with all of the easy money of the past, companies focused on the "big shot factor". Can't be a player without a corporate jet and a private resort in the Bahamas. And of course all of "upper management" needs to have a generous bonus package that consumes at least 25% of the gross take. Since these perks have to be protected at all cost, manufacture will have to be moved off shore in order to "trim the fat" otherwise we can't compete AND keep all of the perks. Everyone has forgotten that the STOCKHOLDERS own the company not "management". Even the stockholders forgot this and left all of the decisions up to management who are more than happy to "manage" themselves more money at the demise of the company. Kudos to Vic Edelbrock who has poised his company to have a chance at surviving by taking his company private and the dedication of his company to "on shore" production. That is one of the major reasons I buy lots of Edelbrock stuff. If Holley has gotten themselves into a **** position, sorry....
Did they just award their ceo's millions in bonus's then announce they intend to lay off line workers?...corporate America has to figure out robbing from the poor just does not pay off in the long run....who knows maybe they just don't care..the middle cl*** is shrinking....the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer ......
Everyone is going to be getting poorer... because we have become a lazy *** **** country... We all want "the stuff", and if we still think we NEED a job it better be a desk job, and they better damn well pay me what I am worth. We are in a sad state.
in theory that could be true ,if the company wasn't so heavy in debt. keep the overhead low and a company can weather about any financial storm. especially if you are privately owned and don't have any investors and outside money guys to to please. a private owner is also more likely to do what is good for the company to position it for the future and not what puts number on an earnings report and pull money out of it. you can also downsize fast to adjust to the market until business picks up when Holley filed bankruptcy a while back they owed a tremendous amount of money..more than i thought they would be ever able to pay off . the debt was ac***ulated when they were originally purchased and with the purchase of the other companies they acquired , like Lunnati , Earl's , NOS , etc. things slow up a little and they just can't service the debt . during the bankruptcy i'm sure they sold some of the companies at a loss to help cover it. i've seen this a million times. a company founded and run profitably by a hard working owner for years until he decides to sell out. then money guys come along to buy it with all borrowed money and it all goes in the ****per i'm sure Crane Cams would be doing fine if it was still being run by Harvey Crane
We probably don't even need to buy a carb unless we need one but how many of us have a carb out in the garage that we have been putting off buying a kit for or a set of jets or another piece. I agee that this whole corporate way of doing business has to change and we need to get production of products moved back stateside even if it means paying a tad more for actual Made in America pieces. It's time for the go in and bleed the company dry and get out with a fat severence package school of management in this country to be done away with. They need to treated just like the rest of us. You don't produce, you get the ax and take nothing that you haven't earned with you. If top executives knew up front that all they were going to get if they got canned was their contribution to their 401k and the pay for their ac***ulated vacation days they would be a lot more interested in making the companies work and less interested in perks. I've run Holleys for the past 35 years because for me they work and I can work on them.
Guys, it's simple. We (Amercians) buy American stuff (cars), American car company's and aftermarket company's do well. When we (Americans) buy Japanese/Chinese/German stuff (cars), American car company's and aftermarket company's suffer. STOP buying that other stuff (cars) and the problem goes away.
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