stunsworth Posted June 3, 2011 Share #41 Posted June 3, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) Well was the Leicaflex a loss, was the SL a loss was the SL-2 a loss was the R3, R4,R4s,R5,R6, R6-2 R7,R8, plus the DMR and finelly the R9 plus all those wonderful R lenses they produced over the years were a loss. For many years Leica made an overall loss on _everything_, not just the R range. I find it difficult to to believe that it was the losses on the M range that were dragging the R range down into unprofitably. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted June 3, 2011 Posted June 3, 2011 Hi stunsworth, Take a look here Leica closes record year, pays dividend. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Peter H Posted June 3, 2011 Share #42 Posted June 3, 2011 ... I wonder if Olympus users are still bemoaning the death of the OM system... Regards, Bill Actually yes, they are! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
UliWer Posted June 3, 2011 Share #43 Posted June 3, 2011 .... apple pays no dividends and the performance of the stock has rewarded its shareholders mightily. .... I think you are comparing apples with Leicas. What would be the reward from the "perfomance of stock" for the stockholder Mr. Kaufmann? To sell his stock. You really think this would be a profit for Leica? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted June 3, 2011 Share #44 Posted June 3, 2011 Then the unthinkable happened a Sensor was made that could fit the M series. Yeah, that just happened. Those crazy people at Kodak Image Sensor Solutions built a CCD with an insane amount of microlens shifting so nobody would have had any use for it if it hadn’t turned that by pure luck it fit the requirements of a digital M. Solms was dumbfounded. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted June 3, 2011 Share #45 Posted June 3, 2011 It really amazes me how people continually make accusation on how the R system never made any money Well was the Leicaflex a loss, was the SL a loss was the SL-2 a loss was the R3, R4,R4s,R5,R6, R6-2 R7, R8, plus the DMR and finelly the R9 plus all those wonderful R lenses they produced over the years were a loss. . Ummm...yes - The reason they went for Minolta bodyframes was because they lost hundreds of Marks on each Leicaflex body sold, the subsequent models just wobbled on and the huge R&D costs on the R8 and R9 were never recouped through lack of sales. One can still buy brand new R8 cameras. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
UliWer Posted June 3, 2011 Share #46 Posted June 3, 2011 The decision to pay a dividend could even mean some new ideas in Dr.Kaufmann's mind... I do not know if he's still pursuing the complete privatization of the Company, but, for sure, is illogical to have 98,5% of a Company belonging to one shareholder and the rest tehorically "floating" in the market... a situation that cannot endure... both for the main shareholder and the market's regulators : with this kind of P&L figures, and the payment of a (conservative) dividend, Leica can be still a stock that could be welcome in the market... maybe, to rebuild a publicly traded mass of shares (say, 25-30%... I don't know German rules about... in Italy would be 25%) through a public offer could be one of the options in Dr. Kaufmann's mind. I don't know Mr. Kaufmann's mind about the future of his enterprises. Though he stated in public that he will not go on trying to buy the rest of stock which is still not owned by him. The reason for this is mainly that among this rest of stockholders there are some who try to get an unreasonable bargain for their share which are not very valuable: e.g. they try to get a lot of money for worthless "expert opinions" about there shares and so on. This is a system of legalized blackmailing applied in many sectors of the stock market. Though without being holder of 100% of the stock he has no chance of changing Leica into a privately owned enterprise - a GmbH - which it was during the Leitz times. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosuna Posted June 3, 2011 Share #47 Posted June 3, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) To make money as a shareholder, either you buy low and sell high – that’s speculation. Or you keep what shares you have and reap the profits in the form of dividends. That’s investment. Speculation is a form of investment, also used by companies... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted June 3, 2011 Share #48 Posted June 3, 2011 I don't know Mr. Kaufmann's mind about the future of his enterprises. Though he stated in public that he will not go on trying to buy the rest of stock which is still not owned by him. The reason for this is mainly that among this rest of stockholders there are some who try to get an unreasonable bargain for their share which are not very valuable: e.g. they try to get a lot of money for worthless "expert opinions" about there shares and so on. This is a system of legalized blackmailing applied in many sectors of the stock market. Though without being holder of 100% of the stock he has no chance of changing Leica into a privately owned enterprise - a GmbH - which it was during the Leitz times. I'm pleased to know that is not only an Italian phenomenon.. ... in some sharolders' meetings, here, time to time, they appear those strange people (at the borderline of blackmailing, as you say) who own 100 shares or so, and try to arrange obscure "advisory biz" to their only advantage, threatening management to "speak loud" in the public shareholders meetings causing difficulties in meetings' votations... is an odd breed of people who I thought was a singularity of our Country... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosuna Posted June 3, 2011 Share #49 Posted June 3, 2011 Ummm...yes - The reason they went for Minolta bodyframes was because they lost hundreds of Marks on each Leicaflex body sold, the subsequent models just wobbled on and the huge R&D costs on the R8 and R9 were never recouped through lack of sales. One can still buy brand new R8 cameras. The problem with the R system in 2008 was the total cost of a further development of the system and the expected sales. The development of the S system, body and 4 lenses, required an investment of 25-30 millions of euros. The development of the R system would have been even more expensive. The R10 camera development cost would have been similar to that of the S2 camera. But you have to base the camera on a CCD sensor, without liveview or video (how much of Canon's sales in professional cameras are coming from video professionals?). The reference of the S camera is the MF market, quite different. But the lenses are a different story. A 35mm format system in the range of prices of a Leica would require a huge set of lenses on the shelves, all of them new. New AF lenses covering a wide range: fix focal lenses, from ultra wide angles to teles and superteles; zooms; macro lenses; high speed lenses; prespective control lenses; entry level lenses; etc. Your competitors have them (Canon, Nikon and Sony, this one have them inherited from Minolta) and you must have them, and you have to do it fast. The R system would have required a huge investment in very few years, mostly in a large and diverse collection of AF lenses. The S system has a different target. 4 new lenses is a very important effort, but you need a much narrower collection of lenses for an interesting offer. 4 fix focal lenses, a zoom... is a good base system. The expectations of sales were not very bright. I mean sustained sales. That back in 2008. Now you can see more clearly the situation: a new system based on a 35mm format would have been a failure. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
UliWer Posted June 3, 2011 Share #50 Posted June 3, 2011 Speculation is a form of investment, also used by companies... That's right - unfortunately. I imagine what had happened to a certain ACM company if they had said: "Why invest in such crap like Leica? Look at bonds, stupid! I just got an extremely interesting offer from Lehmann Bros... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xmas Posted June 3, 2011 Share #51 Posted June 3, 2011 I wonder if Olympus users are still bemoaning the death of the OM system, Canon users the summary execution of the breechlock mount, and so on. Hi Bill Confirmed, on both counts. My biggest problem is Canon stopped making LTM lenses about '72 or so. Noel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildlightphoto Posted June 3, 2011 Share #52 Posted June 3, 2011 Accept the facts. Not liking them doesn't make them bullshit. This kind of thinking would have doomed the M system after the M5 & CL. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted June 3, 2011 Share #53 Posted June 3, 2011 was the SL-2 a loss(?) Yep - which is exactly why Leica dropped it, quit building SLRs in Germany, and outsourced SLR (R3-R7) design to Minolta, and construction first to Minolta and then to the plant in Portugal. A fair number of R System lenses were also outsourced to various Japanese makers to try to keep them cost-effective, either in design or construction. 16 fisheye, 24 Elmarit, the smaller-aperture 28-70, 35-70 and 75/80-200/210 zooms. The last 80-200 f/4 was built by Kyocera (of Contax fame). Leica's primo 35-70 f/2.8 zoom was built in-house - and dropped after about 1,000 copies because it cost more to make than they could sell it for. That is just about exactly the same economics as the SL-2. Did Leica lose money on every individual R body or lens that sold? No. Were there years when the system brought in net income? Yes, probably (although Leica lumps together all "system cameras" in their reports, so we'll never know which years were good for the R, and which years its losses were covered by M system profits). Did the R system lose a lot of money over its life? Perhaps not - but it didn't have to be "a lot," just "enough." "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." - Wilkins Micawber, David Copperfield Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff S Posted June 3, 2011 Share #54 Posted June 3, 2011 Just caught up on this thread. Only on this forum could terrific financial news about the company that makes our favorite products (hence the forum), and that has been close to extinction (more than once), generate so much negativity and disagreement. And we wonder why Leica can't make products that satisfy us all. Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sblitz Posted June 3, 2011 Share #55 Posted June 3, 2011 when you are a small firm with limited capital the best strategy is to foucs on the one thing you do well and do it better than anyone else. ferrari isn't out there making minivans. and if you move to another product line make sure you can capture the market share you need to make it work otherwise forget it. interesting of the little point and shoot. i started buying in 2006 and at the time everyone owned canon. looking around now in nyc, which is currently chock full of european tourists, i seem to see more people with lumix cameras than anything else. given that they carry a leica lens that must mean more money for the firm. good deal for leica, design a lens with a suprerior, let a marketing powerhouse like panasonic sell it, private label some of the series, and you have the cash cow to support your core business -- lenses first, cameras second. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted June 3, 2011 Share #56 Posted June 3, 2011 This kind of thinking would have doomed the M system after the M5 & CL. ...and darned near did. The difference was that the Canadian plant managers - Leica managers who knew the business - were able to present Wetzlar management with a business plan to revive the simpler and cheaper M4 design (no meter), simplify it even further (no self-timer, various other cost-cutting tweaks that earned the M4-2 a bad rep in its first years), and build it with Canadian labor costs. Even then, it took a lot of persuasion. And even then, it also depended on the M system having no direct competition. No other surviving, let alone prospering, interchangeable-lens rangefinder systems. I suspect that if the Portugese plant managers - or even R-users with business or engineering savvy (like you) - had gone to Solms and presented a case, backed by hard numbers, for cost-cutting and simplifying the R system to the point that it could sell at a profit over costs, it might have survived. But it still would have been swimming upstream in a pool of sharks (well-established DSLR lines). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hamey Posted June 4, 2011 Share #57 Posted June 4, 2011 It really amazes me how people can carry so much negativity for so long. I wonder if Olympus users are still bemoaning the death of the OM system, Canon users the summary execution of the breechlock mount, and so on. Let it go. Accept the facts. Not liking them doesn't make them bullshit. Regards, Bill Actually Bill I dont think I am carrying any Negativity, I just like tp press my point of view. I and many others on this forum have been loyal supporters of Leica over the years I do like to hear the truth occassional. If you remember a few years back when Leica wasn't doing so well, a plea on this forum went out for it's members to buy more Leica gear, WELL I DID, I bought the R9 and the 28-90mm lens, I didn't really need it but it was something to help out. I was rewarded by Leica's NAGATIVITY towards us silly R users a few years later. So do you still think I should support Leica. And for what it's worth I also got the M7 Lovely camera but in my view it's outclassed by the Reflex system. All I ask is give me the truth and I will support you 110 % Cheers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lct Posted June 4, 2011 Share #58 Posted June 4, 2011 Repeating the mantra that the R10 could not compete against nikanopus monsters does not help that much IMHO. There is indeed a niche for simple cameras using the best lenses in the world. Photogs interested don't need live view or touch screen any more than Leica M or LF users do. So there was a choice to make between such a niche and that of the S2. Leica chose the latter with hope that it would be more profitable i guess. So much the better for them if the S2 project succeeds (any evidence of this so far?), so much the worst for us faithful and/or naive Leica R users. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
NZDavid Posted June 4, 2011 Share #59 Posted June 4, 2011 Looks like heathy news for Leica, good on them! Interesting to check out some of the financial data. Earnings before tax and depreciation (EBITDA) are very positive -- up by 57.3 % to EUR 248.9 million. That's a huge leap. Turnover also well up. And first dividend since 1997. Yet just a few years ago people were writing Leica off. They must be doing something right! Double Summiluxes all round! Prost! Zum Wohl! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted June 4, 2011 Share #60 Posted June 4, 2011 So there was a choice to make between such a niche and that of the S2. No, there wasn’t. Not in Leica’s view at the time (2008) anyway. Leica had made the choice to develop the S2, then leverage its technology to build an R10. They wanted to do both. The R10 part didn’t work out though, despite Leica’s best intentions. On the other hand, if the camera to fill the niche you spoke of doesn’t have to be a DSLR, then one could say they are still working on a solution. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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