Hassleblad bought by Chinese drone mfr

[Didereaux]

Interesting....could be good, but could be disastrous for Hassleblad brand.
Leading Chinese Drone Company DJI Aquires Hasselblad | Fstoppers

 

[astroNikon]

DJI was already a minority stake holder and on the board of directors.
The Chinese have been after name recognition, and thus buy companies with that name recognition. Hasselblad being one of them.

Expect iPhone clip on Hasselblad lenses now or clip on adapters for Motorola Z phone. Oops, those are out already.

 

[astroNikon]

from wikipedia before it gets changed/updated:
Owner Ventizz Capital Fund IV L.P., Minority investor, DJI,

The issue that came up was the Ventizz Venture Capital firm that bought Hasselblad in 2011 was unwilling to provide further capital funding. Thus cash strapping Hasselblad. They reached out the DJI and sold a minority stake of about 30% and board of director positions.

Since DJI was at 30% (??) minority holder, they decided rather than have their investment wither up and die (as they were starting to use some technology in their drones), to just buy the company as Ventizz wanted out, and control the name in it's entirety.

or something similar to that, since I'm not an insider but just watch business stuff all the time.

 

[Rick50]

Hmmm, it might be that most people don't have $50,000 set aside for their next camera.

 

[SoulfulRecover]

Wonder if it will bring up the value of classic 'blads since they are "pure"

 

[Solarflare]

Well, 50k, no, but thats the absolute top model, and I think only when it was introduced. The current prices of the top model H6D-100 with the full frame 54x40.5mm 100 Megapixel Sony CMOS EXMOR sensor has dropped to 35k now, according to a quick google. The 50 Megapixel crop model always was cheaper. The new X1D is even only 10k, with the exact same 50 Megapixel sensor. With the same sensor they made a special model for their old film cameras, too, thats also a lot less than the H6D version. And of course there are H5D and earlier models which are now a lot cheaper on the used market.

The problem with Hasselblad was their awful recent Sony experiment, which has damaged the company name and was a huge failure. Hasselblad didnt understood why Leica is successful with their Panasonic stuff: Leica helps developing these things, especially also the optics, and Leica doesnt ask for absurdly higher prices or add stupid stuff, they just make a prettier model with extended warranty for like 100€ more. Hasselblad on the other hand made absurd luxury versions of Sony stuff, which just doesnt make any sense at all, not even for rich people as a target market.

Also Hasselblad has one HUGE disadvantage over Leica: they dont make their own lenses, but depend upon Zeiss, Fuji, and other companies for that. Since the lens is the most important part of a camera, thats a real problem and the main reason why Hasselblad has only few options to act.

 

[dxqcanada]

I think minicoop would buy a flying Blad !!!

 

[cgw]

Check out who owns Volvo...

 

[unpopular]

rest in the effin dirt hasselblad!

 

[Overread]

Yeah when you look at what owns what in the world it can be surprising what parent companies own what subsidiary firms. Heck two of the local zoos to me are owned by a road repair/construction firm (although now both zoos have been put into their own charity system). In general if the parent company allows the owned company enough autonomy the end-user might never notice and the proper investment at the right time can allow a struggling firm a new lease of life.

Sometimes you also need outside input to correct mistakes or to give a new focus; some companies can survive for a long while, but market changes and technology changes can leave some floundering with a system that needs change to avoid closure/failure, but the lack of willpower or understanding or even just organisational structure to enact such change (hence a big evil outside firm can sometimes achieve what the internals can't).

 

[unpopular]

Doesn't/Didn't Hermes own Leica? That might make sense from a luxury goods standpoint, but what apparel and cameras have in common ... they don't.

It really depends on what the parent company does with the brand. I think in the case of Hermes/Leica they knew that it was a solid product with a good reputation that could be brought back to life using their existing understanding of folks willing to spend a lot on a brand.

I think that what Ford did with Volvo is very much an example of sort of injecting themselves into the Volvo name. I don't really feel like Ford allowed volvo to remain volvo, and, especially early on, made a lot of volvos that weren't volvos at all, but rather fords with a swedish accent.

Both Hermes/Leica and Ford/Volvo appeal to roughly the same kind of people, respecitvely. The difference is in the product.

Hermes could have cut quality in exchange for premium seal-skinned cameras, I don't think it would have worked, even for the baby seal skin wearing demographic.