Green Goes Black

The announcement Middle Man referenced in the previous post just hit the media, courtesy of the SHOOTING WIRE's Jim Shepherd, who actually sleeps with a bluetooth telephone attachment in his ear!

Cereberus Capital Partners, the new owners of black rifle powerhouse Bushmaster, have acquired Remington for a reported $370 million, with a closing in June. Here's the statement from Big Green:

Remington CEO Tommy Millner released a statement characterizing the transaction as "an acknowledgment of the Remington tradition, its strong brand, and the excellent products built over 191 years…"

This acquisition puts a period and an exclamation point on the industry turmoil since the L'Affaire du Zumbo. Bottom line is simple...the black rifles won. The largest hunting arms manufacturer in the world is now owned by the largest AR manufacturer in the country. Remington has been hammered in their law enforcement division for not having an AR product to accompany their premium tactical rifle line, and they've been increaingly frenetic in trying to solve that problem. They rolled out their pump patrol rifle, but it was barely a blip in the law enforcement avalanche from pump shotguns to semiauto carbines for patrol officers.

Bushmaster is the number one powerhouse in the booming black rifle market, and Cereberus' acquisitions has given the company the juice to kick it up a notch. Here's a couple of predictions that it doesn't exactly take a crystal ball to figure out:

• Remington AR-15 ASAP...yesterday, if possible.
• A line of Green ARs aimed straight at the hunting market. Bushmaster, in conjunction with Hornady, just rolled out their .450 Bushmaster cartridge for the AR, .45/70-plus ballistics in a 9-round mag capacity backage. There have been a bunch of .45-almost .50 caliber ARs, but none with the combined marketing punch of Hornady, Bushmaster and now Remngton behind it.
• The rehabilitation and rebirth of Jim Zumbo, back with Big Green. er, Big Greenish Black. He's the ideal spokesperson...he's personally gone through what Remington just went through on a corporate level!
• A "streamlining" of Big Green's voluminous rifle line...it now takes a computer and a 13-year-old savant with a huge whiteboard to sift through the Remington's offerings. I'm sure it hasn't gone unnoticed to Cereberus execs that Kimber has done a neat job of clipping off the super-premium upside of the market while Ruger and Savage have run rampant through the mid/lower end. Big Green has to get a grip on its product lines!

Charge is the only constant!

UPDATE: Here's the full text of the Remington statement as filed with the SEC (courtesy JJ...thanks for the link!).