Breitbart reports:

QuoteOn Sunday, Colt Defense LLC announced it is filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection and looking to sell operations, or portions of operations, in the U.S. and Canada to pay off $355 million in debts.

In November 2014 Breitbart News reported that Colt was then in trouble and could face default by year's end. They made it through the year, but would not give any comment on their finances when approached by Breitbart News at the 2015 SHOT Show in Las Vegas.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Colt barely survived last year by "[borrowing] $70 million from Morgan Stanley... to pay interest on its bonds, and in February it warned it might not have enough cash to make an interest payment by a June 15, 2015, deadline."

Colt has faced opposition from its bond holders who do not want to agree to any deals that "slash the amount of money" the gun maker owes them.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/15/colt-firearms-files-chapter-11-bankruptcy-protection/

Again?  They're private-equity owned.. meaning leverage-squeeze.  People keep taking the cash out of the company.  They've always been poorly managed, as evidenced by the anti-obama gun surge in '09, when buyers were flocking to other gunmakers. 

This has nothing to so with the mkt, and everything to do with Gov redtape and fighting off constant lawsuits.
If I had control of this entity, things would be run far more different, than focusing on gov contracts.

Quote from: kit saginaw on June 16, 2015, 05:42:34 AM
Again?  They're private-equity owned.. meaning leverage-squeeze.  People keep taking the cash out of the company.  They've always been poorly managed, as evidenced by the anti-obama gun surge in '09, when buyers were flocking to other gunmakers.

Prices were dropping for a lot of unexpectedly better-quality, cheaper foreign-made handguns. Maybe that's how we wound up with the 92F as standard sidearms in place of the reliable 1911.

I do not disagree about their poor management. Or their lawyers, unable to fend off the gun-grabbers leaning on Colt's creditors.

Quote from: Solar on June 16, 2015, 05:48:57 AM
This has nothing to so with the mkt, and everything to do with Gov redtape and fighting off constant lawsuits.
If I had control of this entity, things would be run far more different, than focusing on gov contracts.

Exactly my thoughts when I heard about this.

Colt transferred the technology to China back in the 70's.

Glock made a polymer version of the 911.

The Colt version of the M-16 cost them a lot of fans.  They should have held off on casting and gone for computerized milling, but they didn't.  Go figure.

Ruger copied the Peacemaker at half the price.

Labor flocked to the CT River Valley chasing Roosevelt's Social Security, asking only to keep the hyphen in their names, left what little brains and ethics they had behind from where they came, made more money than they ever dreamed possible, and repaid the Yanks by mobbing up and going criminal.
I'm surprised they lasted this long. Will say, though, that Anaconda was one hell of a hand cannon.

Colt will be back.  The old Chinese cap and ball technology needs to be replaced, anyway. Loud, messy, easy to miss, produces a lot of casualties. 

Quote from: red_dirt on June 16, 2015, 01:08:44 PM
Colt transferred the technology to China back in the 70's.

Glock made a polymer version of the 911.

The Colt version of the M-16 cost them a lot of fans.  They should have held off on casting and gone for computerized milling, but they didn't.  Go figure.

Ruger copied the Peacemaker at half the price.

Labor flocked to the CT River Valley chasing Roosevelt's Social Security, asking only to keep the hyphen in their names, left what little brains and ethics they had behind from where they came, made more money than they ever dreamed possible, and repaid the Yanks by mobbing up and going criminal.
I'm surprised they lasted this long. Will say, though, that Anaconda was one hell of a hand cannon.

Colt will be back.  The old Chinese cap and ball technology needs to be replaced, anyway. Loud, messy, easy to miss, produces a lot of casualties.

Wait! Colt is still in CT? No wonder they are going under!

I hadn't heard differently. I haven't been there for almost 40 years.

I think they are still holding on to the Victorian business plan.   

Quote from: mdgiles on June 16, 2015, 01:12:33 PM
Wait! Colt is still in CT? No wonder they are going under!

Yeah... Another CT business tax-hike ($700-million) is on the way...

GE, Aetna, and Travelers Insurance may leave the state... 

http://www.courant.com/politics/capitol-watch/hc-lawmakers-debate-revenue-estimates-liquor-changes-20150601-story.html#page=1

Proof that dems will tax the last person working...

Quote from: kit saginaw on June 16, 2015, 03:08:31 PM
GE, Aetna, and Travelers Insurance may leave the state... 
[/i]...

In days of olde, insurance companies had rows and rows of desks, underwriters, adjusters, inspectors. Shelves of file folders? They looked like a public records office on steroids. Computers changed all that. The old inefficient buildings were not good for computers.
People liked CT, but it was changing. The cancer of Democratic Party rule was spreading up from NY and down from MA.  Political pressures mounted. The employees got to where they wanted only their friends and relatives working in the companies. So, they had a clash: Democratic Machine versus the needs for best qualified to do the increasingly technical work. Sheer survival forces the choice of the latter.

Quote from: mdgiles on June 16, 2015, 01:12:33 PM
Wait! Colt is still in CT? No wonder they are going under!

Yeah surely it cannot be from just a drop in sales or something...given gun sales have been at all time highs lately.