Industry News - Meade investigates itself

[gary]

Associated Press (AP) reported last Thursday that Meade Instruments Corp
would once again delay filing its annual financial report for the year
ended Feb. 28th 2006.

This latest delay comes about as the company conducts its own internal
audit after the Wall Street Journal named it, along with more than a
dozen other companies, of having allegedly questionable timing of stock
options grants to executives.

The Wall Street Journal articles had triggered the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) into probing several companies. AP reported
that "the companies are being targeted for juicing up the payoff of
stock options by backdating their grants to coincide with a point where
the stock prices had dropped to lows. The practice, if proven, meant
executives were able to reap profit as their companies' stocks rose well
above the options exercise price".

Earlier this month, Meade CEO Steven Murdock resigned and was replaced
by Steven Muellner. Muellner comes from a background of distributing
"children's toys, action sports and lifestyle consumer products". Meade
report that "Steve is very familiar with many of the issues facing Meade
Instruments today, from Asian sourcing to servicing large retail
accounts as well as specialty dealers."

In late March, the company made a press release lowering estimates
for its Fiscal Year 2006.

One difficulty the company was having was with its Asian supplier
of riflescopes. Its Simmons Master Series Riflescopes were named
"2006 Optic of the Year" by the American National Rifle Association
(NRA).

In a press release in later March, the company stated, "In addition, the
sales shortfall at our Simmons subsidiary due to production difficulties
at our Asian supplier continued into the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006,"
continued Casari. "As we have stated throughout the year, we were unable
to obtain enough products to satisfy existing orders on the vast
majority of our newly designed Simmons riflescopes. However, we are
pleased with the progress we have experienced at our second Asian
supplier of our proprietary riflescopes. This second source is an
established riflescope supplier from which the company has purchased
product in the past. We continue to expect Simmons' performance to
return to historical profitability levels, provided our supply
difficulties are materially resolved during the first quarter of fiscal
2007."

Associated Press reported that Meade announced that it expected to post
a loss of US$4.1 million for last year. The company also posted a loss
for the previous financial year.

Stock in Meade is currently trading at about US$2.71 a share.

[davidpretorius]

go celestron!

[josh (Luke)]

$4.1 million loss! Must be all those big adds in as&t

[h0ughy (David)]

well I think that celestron's demise a few years ago, has now come home to haunt Meade. We may well be witnessing one of the goliaths of the astronomical community biting the dust. Man imagine the garage sale???

Shareholders would be in no doubt that their investment is stuffed, now and for the future.

now if it does go belly up, sales support, warranties and "reliability" issues will be raised that's for sure. Celestron survives only so that the patents can be provided to Chinese manufacturers for "mass" marketing under other brands (see Optex and Orion for example, and skywatcher).

They will survive but in what form, will there be a wholesale change. You would think the product line has just about come to an end with the RC type scopes and the lightbridges, but what else can they do to re market themselves and get more sales......... I know , sell the scopes for cheaper! then they would sell more......just a thought and a wish!

[Rodstar (Rod)]

Sounds like they need a good lawyer........

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by Rodstar

Sounds like they need a good lawyer........

don't volunteer Rod, I think its a sinking ship

[gary]

Originally Posted by h0ughy

well I think that celestron's demise a few years ago, has now come home to haunt Meade. We may well be witnessing one of the goliaths of the astronomical community biting the dust. Man imagine the garage sale???

Shareholders would be in no doubt that their investment is stuffed, now and for the future.

Hi Houghy,

As Mark Twain once famously said, "news of my death has been greatly exaggerated".
I think the same holds true for Meade Instruments.

When you consider the historical share price, particularly over the past three
years, there has been little change and after this latest news, the share price
actually increased a little.

http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/c/5y/m/mead

Like stock markets the world over, some of the largest shareholders are
the institutional and mutual fund owners. They control the enormous
bags of money in retirement funds and they are not about to let the
companies they invest in collapse. This make-up of investors in Meade
Instruments is no different and in fact one of them recently insisted on
nominating two of their own people onto the board.

What the new CEO will do to turn the company's profitability around is
yet to be seen, but one can imagine some possible belt tightening in areas such
as advertising and a concentration on their best performing sectors.

[Rodstar (Rod)]

The sad fact, as it seems to me at least, is that it is very difficult to make a quid in any astronomy-related business enterprise. Compared to most consumer products, astro gear has such a small market in the general community; take as an example the recent discussion about AS&T going bi-monthly, and the problems S&S has had.

Add to the small market the difficulty of western manufacturers competing with products manufactured on the back of cheap third world labour. The fact that Meade continues to have a major manufacturing plant in California must make it harder for them to keep costs down.

I love my LX200, and continue to be astounded with what I can do with such a relatively inexpensive scope. I would have paid more (don't tell Bintel-shhhh). Perhaps prices in the industry need to be increased a tad to make business in this area more viable.

I do hope Meade can ride out current difficulties, and get their affairs in order for the benefit of us all.