I don't think the price is all that low (I'm a bean counter - sorry, couldn't help but look)
Cleveland Golf's financial statements for the 9 months ended 7/31/07 were filed with the SEC as part of the parent company's quarterly filing (page 26 of
http://research.money.excite.com/cus...IKSILVER%20INC)
anyway, the Cleveland golf is losing money. They had a pretax loss of almost $10 million through 9 months. (and I'm guessing they sell alot of their product before July 31st so retailers can get it in our hands in time for the season)
Many times when companies are sold - deals are based on a multiple of EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amorization expenses) - this doesn't apply here because they had negative EBITDA (about ($5.7m) too - apparently the hi-bore, the CMM irons and wedges, along with the never compromise putters just didn't do that well
Anyway the parent company just bought the 36% of the cleveland golf that it didn't already own for $17.5m - which could translate into a total company value of only $48.1million - this could be off, since I have no idea how the original agreement was worded, but in any case they got $132.5m for the company that was hurting their bottom line and didn't fit with their overall image/strategy
On one hand - it looks like Srixon paid alot for it, but I really think Cleveland's customers and distribution network are worth it for Srixon
again - sorry for the accountant's view of the world, I just can't help myself