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Property (assuming that there's some value in whatever they own, over and above any mortgages on that property).
Plant & machinery (limited value given that there's limited demand/re-sale opportunity).
Stock (obviously constantly changing and, given cashflow is an issue, probably kept to a minimum nowadays).
IP (the rights to the Gibson name and the designs that they own).
I'd guess that most value is in the IP rights.
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
If I were a Chinese company I'd want to be "allowed" to build to a US spec for a lower price and turn the market upside-down, currently the major brands are only willing to build lower spec guitars in China, which I suspect irritates the Chinese.
They would almost certainly retain a US manufacturing arm, probably custom-shop only, so that the deal gets past the government.
The "kudos" of US made product is at best an eccentricity of the guitar community, one the US based manufacturers are happy to encourage, as they tier their products that way. If it were possible (and there is no reason to believe it isn't, that I'm aware of) to manufacture to the spec of the current Les Paul Standard, currently going for over £2000 new, and sell it for £1000, if it is a great guitar, it will sell like buckets. Currently you are partly paying the cost of financing Gibson's debt when you buy a new Gibson, that would all be gone.
Wages in China are nowhere near as low as they used to be, but then there is literally nothing stopping a Chinese owner manufacturing in Indonesia, or anywhere else. Yes, it takes time to learn to craft a custom guitar, but it takes very little time to program a CNC machine, and most US made guitars are not hand-made.
You would also get an instant benefit from fixing any manufacturing quirks and eccentricities, and disposing of an entitled US workforce.
Sure, the guitars probably wouldn't hold as much magic for the older generation but the future lies in the younger generation of professional and hobby guitarists. In a world where the west is getting poorer and gilt-edged pensions and high earning middle-ranking jobs are getting rarer, there will be a big market.
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
Nil Satis Nisi Optimum
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Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after youHowever I actually meant the Chinese investors buying the company of such a thing were to happen.
As I said it's a guitar eccentricity isn't it? Nobody sees US made as a sign of quality for anything else and the Chinese make much more complicated devices by the millions every year.
I'd honestly say moving manufacturing should if it were to happen help build a future which would have to mean massively lower costs, off shoring would and could be part of that without affecting quality.
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