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New Leica CEO?


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German magazine Manager-Magazin reports that Oliver Kaltner (Chief Marketing Officer) is going to replace Alfred Schopf as CEO:

 

The End of Coziness

Blackstone macht Druck - Leica wechselt Chef aus - manager magazin

 

Google Translate:

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.manager-magazin.de%2Funternehmen%2Findustrie%2Fblackstone-macht-druck-leica-wechselt-chef-aus-a-1021417.html&edit-text=

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See Leica Rumors on this!

Leica News & Rumors

 

Interesting - it could explain the recent flurry of discounts, special editions and make-overs, to generate cash quickly!

 

I've said many times, Leica's biggest problem in recent years has been quality control. Too many products (for a company with a brand that has such a great reputation for quality) going out of the door faulty or faults developing once products are in the hands of customers - sensor corrosion, sensor covers cracking at will, bodies cracking when mounted on tripods, lenses poorly assembled, strap lugs falling off, body coverings peeling off...........how much money have these issues cost Leica?

 

Yes there will always be some issues, nothing is ever perfect, but really some of the examples on this forum have been shocking - lenses assembled with aperture or focus rings back to front, sent out with a personally signed card to say the item had been inspected many times?! No excuses for that.

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Still, one can wonder whether the next CEO should come from the ranks of the Marketing Department. Leica's track record is less than brilliant there, like the initial mishandling of the sensor issue, the XVario introduction, etc....

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It would be nice to see the real numbers from Leica, in order to understand which markets and which product families caused the losses.

Maybe Leica has spent too much technical R&D resources for limited series of existing products and over-the-top lenses, which normally do not achieve big numbers due to the small numbers of units sold.

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Still, one can wonder whether the next CEO should come from the ranks of the Marketing Department. Leica's track record is less than brilliant there, like the initial mishandling of the sensor issue, the XVario introduction, etc....

 

Indeed, even if the numbers of the last quarters and the forecasts for the next ones are really bad, this change does not seem to create a true discontinuity in the Leica strategies. A substitution of Schopf with the Chief of the Marketing Department? What it means? That the CEO didn't know how to sell the cameras?

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Perhaps worth holding back from making any purchases for now. They may have to discount heavily to create a fast increase in cash flow, and it's clearly mentioned about quality control issues which people seem to have just brushed off as a slight inconvenience. It may have backfired? Things like the "T" really weren't market ready. There a suggestion of a model 116 ? Any ideas what that is ? The company may have to take a complete change of direction if Blackstone sell and Panasonic buy in

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Hmmm.. Good news? Time will tell. I found Dr. Schopf quite a pleasant person

 

Yes, he did me a favour recently when the usual people at Leica were being stubbornly unhelpful.

 

Interesting to read the rumours re: Blackstone and recent financial performance. I've been saying here for a long time that you only have to talk to any dealer to know that the products haven't been selling well for at least a year or more.

 

Incidentally, I notice that the two latest special editions – Kravitz and Safari – both feature the 35 Summicron when the recent norm has been to include the Summilux in these kits. I wonder whether this is a sign that one of the product announcements for this summer (I think the new Monochrom is a given) is a new 35 Summicron. If I recall correctly, the Monochrom was launched along with the 50 APO so they might want to do something similar this year? The 35 Summicron is arguably the quintessential Leica M lens and hasn't been updated in about 20 years.

Edited by wattsy
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...The company may have to take a complete change of direction if Blackstone sell and Panasonic buy in
Seems to me it's not necessarily likely that Panasonic would take a major stake or control of Leica AG. Not that I have any knowledge of this, but Thom Hogan wrote the following last year: Panasonic has woken up to the fact that these negative ROI appendages are killing the overall company slowly. I suspect that Panasonic will fold their independent camera group, get out of the P&S business, and merge the remaining Micro 4/3 stuff into the pro video group as a temporary solution...Olympus and Panasonic just never got to their promised land in volume before the camera sales declines hit them.

 

One call also make the opposite argument, but my point is that, unless one has a deeper knowledge of the camera sector from a business point of view, there is no point to speculate whether and who might take a major stake in Leica AG.

Edited by not_a_hero
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Panasonic have a long relationship with Leica and prior to the Kauffman takeover had helped secure the future of the company by loaning them €15m when Leica were pretty much insolvent. Leica, with their rebranded compacts, are an important (and prestigious) customer of Panasonic's and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the Japanese company took a strategic stake (or bought out Blackstone).

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It would be nice to see the real numbers from Leica, in order to understand which markets and which product families caused the losses.

Maybe Leica has spent too much technical R&D resources for limited series of existing products and over-the-top lenses, which normally do not achieve big numbers due to the small numbers of units sold.

I might be even nicer to see whether there are losses or not. As far as I am aware this is pure speculation.

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Now this I had not heard of. Not M bodies certainly, or were they?

 

The M8/M9/MM baseplate has a thin rectangular slot for body key.

This is a weak design compared to the traditional M baseplate pin with a flat.

 

The M.240 seems to have resolved this with solid chassis threaded mount that passes through the baseplate - a solution even more robust than the film M design.

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