B&O, the Danish Enron!

I think you should read up on your Enron history,

That was records of profits that was in the future but put in the annual report years before.

The problem with this was that the future profit did not exist.

I see nothing like this in B&O books.

Quite positive read well done.

I'm quite aware of Enron and how it worked, having had classes devoted to just that in MBA program. But jeez, pedantic much? It's a metaphor for how a company can look good right up until it all implodes. Look at B&O's product portfolio lately? See anything out there that isn't buggy, riddled with networking and software issues? Certainly the dealers are all doing very well and not having any closures...oh, wait. I don't understand, and we don't have enough insight into the books, to understand what's really going on, but it seems to beggar belief that this is straightforward, given the many product issues we all know about from seeing them discussed here. But hey, maybe there is money to be made hawking Chinese module based products of the week, new and weird colors, and rebadged LG TVs. Stranger things have happened, the whole madness of crowds once pushed the price of stupid tulips to the stratosphere, and remember pet rocks?

Overall if they are making good money the way they're running the business now, that's bad for any true lovers of the brand, as there won't be the impetus to actually change the way they are operating and designing things. If shoving buggy rebadged or off the shelf items makes money, well, why improve?

Duels wrote:

A good set of numbers generally for the first half of the financial year.

 

Sales up 15% overall. Play up 25%, B&O up 8%.

 

Revenue was up in all geographic areas.

 

 

No breakdown of sales by product type (ie tv, speakers, audio etc) that I could see.

How much profit, not raw sales numbers?

I think it is a slightly wrong comparison. Enron case was a total fraud with mark-to-market accounting and these practises are barely possible nowadays with Sarbanes–Oxley Act in place.

BO is experiencing a technological transformation, they held really well so far, given that they don't have a scaleable production, hugely competitive consumer line and widespread skills in building software ecosystem, it's a brand equity that helps them have a ride right now. 

Apple had a very similar problem 20 years ago, but on a different scale.

It is a brutal world out there for companies playing in a high evolving technological markets and I have seen many of them going bust.

What BO is doing is quite reasonable, hide the details for now, build robust cash foundation, pacify shareholders, apply decent product strategy that you truly believe in and love; execute and execute.

It is clear that consumer line products are selling like a hot cakes in market several orders of magnitude greater than a traditional pro market. Consumer products are driving the top line growth and will have more attention from the ET.

Question remains will BO love and have a space to continue developing, innovating, surprising and delighting pro customers? time will tell. 

Rebranded LG tv haha you are unbelievable

But lets not go into that discussion Again :D

Some sees the glass half full others does not

But Again if you know your Enron case you should use the metaphor where it fits.