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Instant Pot and Pyrex Maker Instant Brands Files for Bankruptcy

bloomberg.com

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Re: Instant Pot and Pyrex Maker Instant Brands Files for Bankruptcy

#31

Post by Mistletoe »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #30
IvyMike wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instant Pot was purchased in 2017 by Cornell Capital, a private equity company. I discovered this just now by when I thought "I bet some private equity company bought them and destroyed them in order to make short term profits" and then googled "instant pot private equity" to see if that was the case. It appears so. Gotta love those private equity companies. I'm no expert, but this article is a good overview of how t…

If you look at Google trends, searches for instant pot peaked after the 2017 buyout. I think the examples of leveraged buyouts destroying brands is exaggerated. If it is a good brand, it will exist. It is just a chance of ownership from a capital firm to a lender.

They made a lot of sales. Why does that have to be the death of the company? Just keep making good products. Everything doesn’t have to go up forever. I know this paints me as naive but growth above all else is eating us alive. How much growth is their bankruptcy?

Re: Instant Pot and Pyrex Maker Instant Brands Files for Bankruptcy

#32

Post by rhaway84773 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #21
h2odragon wrote: post #2

Take a well known, respected brand; remove all the things that made it respected, sell shoddy replacements instead (and throw the name at everything else it might stick to); and when you've milked it dry, walk away from the debts. I wish I could still easily buy real borosillicate glassware.

Are modern instant pots actually shoddy? I haven't looked at the legal documents but maybe the problem is making a product that is durable and doesn't need replacement resulting in no recurring sales. Edit: I bought my instant pot after the buyout and it seems great and as if it will last another 10 or 20 years

Yeah I think the quality actually increased.

We had an instant pot from before the purchase which stopped working. But Instant Pot replaced it for free some time after the acquisition and the new one works significantly better than the old one and has lasted much longer as well.

Re: Instant Pot and Pyrex Maker Instant Brands Files for Bankruptcy

#33

Post by rhaway84773 »

Mistletoe wrote: post #31
s1artibartfast wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at Google trends, searches for instant pot peaked after the 2017 buyout. I think the examples of leveraged buyouts destroying brands is exaggerated. If it is a good brand, it will exist. It is just a chance of ownership from a capital firm to a lender.

They made a lot of sales. Why does that have to be the death of the company? Just keep making good products. Everything doesn’t have to go up forever. I know this paints me as naive but growth above all else is eating us alive. How much growth is their bankruptcy?

Because youre at the mercy of the distributors forcing you to lower prices, especially with the monopsony that exists in the US. Because you are at the mercy of your manufacturers increasing prices especially during a supply chain foul up during and after the pandemic which would affect you significantly more considering how big and heavy your product is.

There’s a lot of reasons a company selling a lot of product can still go under in todays market.

Re: Instant Pot and Pyrex Maker Instant Brands Files for Bankruptcy

#34

Post by rhaway84773 »

vrosas wrote: post #14
Mistletoe wrote: post #5

I don’t see how they managed to mess this up. The entire world bought an Instant Pot a few years ago when they were all the rage on Reddit, etc. We bought my brother one for a gift.

Mine’s main purpose is dealing with dinner when I forgot to defrost something the night before. Besides that it collects dust. I know it can do more but I view it as a machine that does everything ok and nothing perfect.

It’s an excellent pressure cooker.

And if you know how to pressure cook then it easily becomes the #1 tool in your kitchen, which is what it’s become in ours.

Re: Instant Pot and Pyrex Maker Instant Brands Files for Bankruptcy

#35

Post by silverlake »

IvyMike wrote: post #13
Mistletoe wrote: post #5

I don’t see how they managed to mess this up. The entire world bought an Instant Pot a few years ago when they were all the rage on Reddit, etc. We bought my brother one for a gift.

Instant Pot was purchased in 2017 by Cornell Capital, a private equity company. I discovered this just now by when I thought "I bet some private equity company bought them and destroyed them in order to make short term profits" and then googled "instant pot private equity" to see if that was the case. It appears so. Gotta love those private equity companies. I'm no expert, but this article is a good overview of how t…

This article talks about debt likes its free money. Getting a loan means convincing a lender that you are very likely to pay it all back. If PE firms had a history of not paying back debts, why would lenders continue to lend to them? Like, who is this moron losing money on loans every day?

Re: Instant Pot and Pyrex Maker Instant Brands Files for Bankruptcy

#36

Post by s1artibartfast »

Mistletoe wrote: post #31
s1artibartfast wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at Google trends, searches for instant pot peaked after the 2017 buyout. I think the examples of leveraged buyouts destroying brands is exaggerated. If it is a good brand, it will exist. It is just a chance of ownership from a capital firm to a lender.

They made a lot of sales. Why does that have to be the death of the company? Just keep making good products. Everything doesn’t have to go up forever. I know this paints me as naive but growth above all else is eating us alive. How much growth is their bankruptcy?

Things don't have to have continual growth. It actually is possible for a company to just sustain. However, if you see your rapid growth and then rapid decline, that is a dangerous transition for companies. It's easy to overspend and over commit yourself. Random websites on Google say instapot sales are down 65 percent in the last year. That is tough for any company to handle. WSJ says they had to cancel over 100M in contracts.

That said, bankruptcy doesn't necessarily mean it is the end of the product line. More likely it means some investors will lose some money, which is OK because they are in the business of making bets, and some won't pan out

Re: Instant Pot and Pyrex Maker Instant Brands Files for Bankruptcy

#37

Post by tkanarsky »

codersfocus wrote: post #26
vrosas wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine’s main purpose is dealing with dinner when I forgot to defrost something the night before. Besides that it collects dust. I know it can do more but I view it as a machine that does everything ok and nothing perfect.

It boils eggs perfectly (shells are always easy to pull off)

That's not hard to do, you just have to immediately run the eggs under cold water after boiling.

Re: Instant Pot and Pyrex Maker Instant Brands Files for Bankruptcy

#38

Post by reassembled »

I don’t know what we’d do without the InstantPot. We literally have this thing going every night making veggies, beans and lentils, soups, and stews for the family. It really takes a ton of stress out of mealtimes, particularly with a toddler in the house. Even before we had a kid we were using the thing constantly, and telling all of our friends and family to buy one.

Our first Instant Pot unit had a faulty pressure release seal in the lid and so Insta replaced and shipped a brand new lid to us free of charge.

Re: Instant Pot and Pyrex Maker Instant Brands Files for Bankruptcy

#39

Post by awaythrow483 »

dr_monster wrote: post #12
awaythrow483 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern consumer brands have essentially nothing to do with selling consumer goods. They are financial vehicles for private equity to lever up on. In a decreasing liquidity environment many of these schemes will blow up. They could have sold 100x more insta pots and it wouldn't have mattered, it's pure financial gambling under the hood

I’d like to read more about this, has it been documented or analyzed in any organized way via books/research, etc. that is available?

Roughly the things to look up are private equity and their "bust out" strategy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5PLEZiSZV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3_41Whvr1I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o10nh86q64Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7VmIy0VXOY

Buy a company with debt (leveraged buy out). Hand that cash back to the "private equity investors". Let the company go bankrupt and the debt magically dissapears.

Basically legalized theft at enormous scale

Re: Instant Pot and Pyrex Maker Instant Brands Files for Bankruptcy

#40

Post by kylehotchkiss »

reassembled wrote: post #38

I don’t know what we’d do without the InstantPot. We literally have this thing going every night making veggies, beans and lentils, soups, and stews for the family. It really takes a ton of stress out of mealtimes, particularly with a toddler in the house. Even before we had a kid we were using the thing constantly, and telling all of our friends and family to buy one. Our first Instant Pot unit had a faulty pressure…

You could buy a fissler pressure cooker if you needed a different pressure cooker. Yes it goes on the stove and doesn’t have variable pressure settings but it gets the job done, is mechanically sound and should last decades with occasional seal replacements
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