Stanley - Black & Decker has sold Delta???

[Kevin Gregoire]

what is wrong with this world when a big company sells off a huge part of itself??

Stanley Black & Decker is bidding goodbye to Delta Tools, selling the brand to a Taiwanese company

http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/34363/updated-stanley-sells-delta-tools-to-taiwanese-company

maybe this is old news but its the first i have heard of it and it really surprises me.

[Dave Sabo]

I'm not sure anything is the matter, but just how did you think Stanley was going to pay for this acquisition? This happens all the time, under performing divisions, or those that don't fit the plan moving forward are sold off. It also happens when there is no acquisition to fund, look at Ford's recent divestiture of foreign brands.

[Kevin Gregoire]

I'm not sure anything is the matter. huh?

just how did you think Stanley was going to pay for this acquisition? what is Stanley paying for??

[Ben Franz]

I guess there are a couple of ways to look at this situation.

For me and I'm sure many others, any announcement that B & D was buying up a venerable, once respected brand, was seen as a sign of tha apocalypse. I'm old enough to remember clearly when Delta, Powermatic and General were considered top of the line brands. I know the OWWM crowd have a lot of names that can go on that list but I'm just talking about major market brands common in home and hobbyist shops. Now we read that B & D (the evil empire) is SELLING the Delta brand. Horrors! How much lower can they fall? Is a major cooperative agreement with Harbor Freight just around the corner? RIP Delta?

In actuality, as the FWW article today noted, the new Unisaw and DP have marked a recent upward trend in the Delta brand. There is no basis for assuming that the B & D sale is going to halt that trend. I'm sure there is a cogent "Corporate Finance" argument for all these moves and decisions. I'm equally sure that (a) I'm not in a position to understand them and (b) I don't want to spend any time worrying about it.

I'm hopeful that the major brands that have been standbys for many of us continue and improve. There are still the same issues of foreign vs. domestic manufacture but these aren't going away in my lifetime.

[Dave MacArthur]

There's nothing wrong with the world on this, it's neither new nor alarming. Here's the history of Delta from Wikipedia:

Delta Machinery manufactures several lines of power tools. Delta's history began with its founding as the "Delta Specialty Company" in 1919 by Herbert Tautz. Based at first in Tautz' Milwaukee, Wisconsin garage, the business thrived, first making small tools for home shops and later expanding into light industrial machinery. In 1945, the business, by then known as Delta-Milwaukee, was acquired by Rockwell Manufacturing Company. By the late 1950s, Rockwell had become a powerhouse in stationary and woodworking machinery through expansion of its product line and acquisitions of companies such as Walker-Turner and Crescent Machine Company. In 1981, Rockwell's power tool group was acquired by Pentair and rebranded Delta, the brand that it carries today. Pentair's Tools group was acquired by Black & Decker in 2004, which became Stanley Black & Decker in 2010.

And here's the Delta website's own history:
DELTA History - Delta Machinery|Porter-Cable



Both show that this company has gone through many iterations. When you combine it with how Porter Cable flowed into Rockwell, then Delta/Pentair, then DeWalt entered the group, then BD, then Stanley... well, the only strange thing is how long B&D owned Delta.

And every other woodworking tool producing company out there is just the same, PM has had about 5 owners too...