45 replies to this topic

[Bowlerhat]

Quite the opposite. Meade, as it became apparent, was really an arm of Synta.

Not Ningbo? then again it's kind of similar innit

[carolinaskies]

It is an interesting development. After Sunny Optical purchased Meade, Orion filed anti-trust, and eventually proved price fixing by the Asian Sunny Optical and Synta.

The loss of this lawsuit brought Meade to it's knees... filing for Bankruptcy protection in late 2019. This devalued the company, and now Orion has scooped it up.

Some smart business strategic moves... first put the king in check... now checkmated him.

 

This is in my opinion, healthy for the astronomy community. Although there are now fewer players, one is now solidly on this side of the Pond.

Actually you have your information mixed up.  

Meade went public on the stock exchange in the early 2000s, but shortly after all the corporate execs cashed out it left the company in a poor position.  This left Meade in a bad position in 2012/2013.  Orion tried to buy Meade(something it had long wanted to do as to get into manufacturing high end optics besides buying from Japan>Taiwan>China as the manufacturing center shifted for optics.  Instead it went to Ningbo-Sunny.  Synta and Ningbo-Sunny are linked through Chinese ownership and the claim Orion made was they were not able to get the most-favored deals on optical equipment. 

This is kind of interesting to me because every product Synta produced and Ningbo-Sunny produced was essentially priced withing a few dollars depending on what name was affixed to the instrument.  Most of Orions claims over the years in various lawsuits were found without merit or without evidence.  The 2019 case was during the height of the Trumpism era where his policies and stacking court systems with pro-conservative judges helped rulings against foreign companies.  At this time Meade was a subsidiary of Ningbo-Sunny and the lawsuit only attached signficance to Meade because it was the only method which the Orion lawyers could find to attack Ningbo-Sunny.  This is since Meade itself never manufactured anything for Orion.  It was a backdoor lawsuit with punitive damages since it was brought in California.  And all those damages were laid upon Meade as the only entity they could leverage. 

From the standpoint of crippling Meade... it simply put a burden on the ownership aspect,  and Meade was only crippled by the pandemic(like other companies have been), as early reports of the bankruptzy clearly showed the company was doing well in business.  Over the 2020/2021 timeframe it must have become clear the only avenue left was a deal with Orion.  Severed from Ningbo-Sunny, there wasn't much of a choice.  So now we have Orion not 'scooping up' a devalued company, but seizing the US operations it has always wanted.  

Lets be clear, Meade itself did not have any responsibility.  It was the parent company that did the so called dirty deed of price-fixing... a claim which is still rather dubious in actual market effect as Orion continued to have substantial sales in this claimed damage time period.  Regardless, Meade was the scapegoat, and so it felt the brunt of the lawsuit and had to declare bankruptzy to protect it's assets while options were evaluated.   

The reality of 2021 is that Orion still purchases equipment from Synta and Ningbo-Sunny, as China/Taiwan produce the lions share of optical lenses, mirrors, etc produced at the consumer and pro-sumer level.  US glass companies are not interested in that market, they got out of it 50 years ago with so many other US companies who either sold off or shut down operations in the US.  Japan>Taiwan>China took over much of all that production though they had been making optics for worldwide consumption as far back as the early 1900s, so it wasn't a huge leap for them.  

Orion is owned by it's workers, which can be both good and bad.  They've never been an optical manufacturer, and have built their business mostly as an importer. Working with Synta, Ningbo-Sunny, and other companies to have products manufactured overseas and imported with their branding on it.  The venerable EQ5/EQ6 mounts are knock-offs of the Japanese mounts and are sold by Synta as Skywatcher and by Orion under it's own branding.  Most of Orions catalog are non-unique company branded products.  It was one reason Orion wanted to buy Meade all those years ago.  Now they have managed it through the bankruptzy settlement.  We can hope and wait and see what comes of it.  

In the fork mount and SCT categories there have really only ever been 2 big names for consumer/academic telescope-mount options... Meade and Celestron.  All other attempts either failed or are high-end limited production models with niche sales.  There isn't any logical reason for Orion to upset that particular paradigm.  Imagine if Apple were bought out by Nokia.... would you destroy the one brand in favor of the other?  No wise saavy corporation would do that.  And in the small world of amateur astronomy it would be far less likely in my opinion despite those who have chips on their shoulder when it comes to Meade.  

Though the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth, I can only have confidence that Orion does the right thing going forward in leaving Meade Instruments as a seperate entity and operation.  

[CharLakeAstro]

It was a backdoor lawsuit with punitive damages since it was brought in California.  And all those damages were laid upon Meade as the only entity they could leverage. 

From the standpoint of crippling Meade... it simply put a burden on the ownership aspect,  and Meade was only crippled by the pandemic(like other companies have been), as early reports of the bankruptzy clearly showed the company was doing well in business.  Over the 2020/2021 timeframe it must have become clear the only avenue left was a deal with Orion.  Severed from Ningbo-Sunny, there wasn't much of a choice.  So now we have Orion not 'scooping up' a devalued company, but seizing the US operations it has always wanted.  

Lets be clear, Meade itself did not have any responsibility.  It was the parent company that did the so called dirty deed of price-fixing... a claim which is still rather dubious in actual market effect as Orion continued to have substantial sales in this claimed damage time period.  Regardless, Meade was the scapegoat, and so it felt the brunt of the lawsuit and had to declare bankruptzy to protect it's assets while options were evaluated.   
 

Quote... (source https://astronomy.co...-for-bankruptcy)

 

"In a legal complaint filed back in 2016, Orion accused Meade’s parent company of working with another major Chinese telescope
manufacturer to fix prices and monopolize the American telescope market. The other company settled with Orion before the suit
was filed and is not named in the complaint.

 

After the jury’s verdict, a U.S. District Court judge on Dec. 5 ruled that Meade and Ningbo Sunny must pay damages to Orion.
According to the jury’s verdict — linked to from Orion’s website — Meade owes the retailer at least $16.8 million. However,
the amount owed could triple because of the Sherman Antitrust Act, bringing the total closer to $50 million.

The text of Meade Instruments’ bankruptcy filing claims debts between $10 million and $50 million. And according to reporting
by Bloomberg News, Meade now intends to sell itself."

 

Debts of 10-50 million... a 50 million judgement against them.

The lawsuit was a bit more than a burden on ownership... it was the death knell.

[Upstate New Yorker]

As a Meade owner of 17+ years (with a large Meade purchase this year) I am happy that there is now someone who will restart the focus on product and engineering development along with enhanced customer support.  I look forward to spending some more bucks on next generation Meade products.

I agree!  It's nice to see a fallen giant of astronomy being put back on its feet.

[Upstate New Yorker]

Quote... (source https://astronomy.co...-for-bankruptcy)

 

"In a legal complaint filed back in 2016, Orion accused Meade’s parent company of working with another major Chinese telescope
manufacturer to fix prices and monopolize the American telescope market. The other company settled with Orion before the suit
was filed and is not named in the complaint.

 

After the jury’s verdict, a U.S. District Court judge on Dec. 5 ruled that Meade and Ningbo Sunny must pay damages to Orion.
According to the jury’s verdict — linked to from Orion’s website — Meade owes the retailer at least $16.8 million. However,
the amount owed could triple because of the Sherman Antitrust Act, bringing the total closer to $50 million.

The text of Meade Instruments’ bankruptcy filing claims debts between $10 million and $50 million. And according to reporting
by Bloomberg News, Meade now intends to sell itself."

 

Debts of 10-50 million... a 50 million judgement against them.

The lawsuit was a bit more than a burden on ownership... it was the death knell.

But we do not know what the actual settlement was.  It is quite likely that Orion used the $50 million (by the way, this is tiny as antitrust fees go, just not in astronomy) to bargain with Ningbo Sunny.  In other words, Ningbo Sunny may have sold Meade to Orion for a negligible amount of money, writing off the $50 million.  Remember, it is not in Orion's interest to force Meade to sell off its assets.

[CharLakeAstro]

Yes. Checkmate!! 

 

But we do not know what the actual settlement was.  It is quite likely that Orion used the $50 million (by the way, this is tiny as antitrust fees go, just not in astronomy) to bargain with Ningbo Sunny.  In other words, Ningbo Sunny may have sold Meade to Orion for a negligible amount of money, writing off the $50 million.  Remember, it is not in Orion's interest to force Meade to sell off its assets.

[rferrante]

I think this is a good thing for Meade, and a good thing for SCT competition. Meade and Celestron are no longer owned (effectively) by the same entity, so we can expect more differentiation between Meade and Celestron's products and pricing, I'd guess. If I were designing telescopes for Meade, or for Celestron for that matter, I'd take direct aim at the other's products. That would not have happened before.

 

--Rob

[carolinaskies]

Quote... (source https://astronomy.co...-for-bankruptcy)

 

"In a legal complaint filed back in 2016, Orion accused Meade’s parent company of working with another major Chinese telescope
manufacturer to fix prices and monopolize the American telescope market. The other company settled with Orion before the suit
was filed and is not named in the complaint.

 

After the jury’s verdict, a U.S. District Court judge on Dec. 5 ruled that Meade and Ningbo Sunny must pay damages to Orion.
According to the jury’s verdict — linked to from Orion’s website — Meade owes the retailer at least $16.8 million. However,
the amount owed could triple because of the Sherman Antitrust Act, bringing the total closer to $50 million.

The text of Meade Instruments’ bankruptcy filing claims debts between $10 million and $50 million. And according to reporting
by Bloomberg News, Meade now intends to sell itself."

 

Debts of 10-50 million... a 50 million judgement against them.

The lawsuit was a bit more than a burden on ownership... it was the death knell.

Ningbo-Sunny was THE main supplier to Meade.  Any 'debts' by and large were simply the book-keeping numbers outside of a few lesser creditors like the shipping companies and other incidental suppliers to the physical buisness locations.  Business wise N-S would be the main debit for all supplied products which were credited to Meade in advance.  That includes the vast low end product lines and binocular, microscopes, et al. 

The core of US Meade is not those products which were manufactured and packaged in China for worldwide consumption under the Meade name.  There was some reporting of March-June 2020 Meade operations which I read through last year.  It was clear the company wasn't in dire straits, but rather having a pretty good inflo vs outflo.  The debits were where any business would expect, materials/import costs and labor costs.  And like any typical business the carry-over in the business lifecycle which anyone familiar with accounting processes would be familiar.

Prior to the lawsuit the 2019 projected outlook for the consumer optical market was increasing substantially over the next 5 years, it's growth has since been revised upward due to the pandemic's effect on the hobby in general around the world.  Meade and Celestron were as always vying for who held leadership in sales.  Since neither company is public the actual figures can be debated, but any claim that Meade was in bad shape is just wishful thinking.  

We run into this sentiment regularly on CN because of the doomsayers who've yet to prognosticate any actual demise of Big Blue for more than 20 years of the ups and downs of niche hobbies like ours. 

 
I find the backlash against China and Asian manufacture in general hilarious and specifically in our hobby.  It shows those slinging such mud and innuendo have no grasp of manufacturing centers or how optics and electronic components are sourced for this hobby by 99.9% of the companies.  Just like the electronics in even the most expensive mounts... bread boards and components are rarely if ever made in the US itself.  Open up your favorite high end consumer brand and you cannot escape the global nature of electronics manufacture today.  

I look forward with positivity at the opportunites Meade will have now, even if I am miffed that it's Orion who got control through lawsuits which could have done much harm to our hobby. 

The doomsayers can keep failing in their prognosticating... meanwhile I look forward to a continued bright future for Meade.  

Clear Skies.  

[Upstate New Yorker]

I'm pleased that Meade will continue, and hopefully thrive under this new regime.  I've always liked Meade, and I own two Meade telescopes.

 

But I think that we should exercise restraint over our remarks concerning China.  There is a distinction between the long-enduring Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party that determines how many children a family may have and the amount of intellectual property theft to be conducted that year.  The Chinese people are a great and ancient people who work hard, with assiduous attention to detail, and save much, bootstrapping their way to prosperity and growth.  These same folk produce, as a small part of their output, the excellent Meade Series 6000 APO refractors for half the price of almost the same thing made in the US.  We hobbyists should be grateful for what has been given to us in my view.

 

There: I've said it.   All I mean is: we should avoid what used to be called "Yellow Peril-ism", at which time it was applied to Japan.  If we worry what about these countries are doing, almost certainly all we need to do is work the way that they do, and apply our imaginations the way that they do.

[CltFlyboy]

Folks: A gentle reminder that we won't allow any talk of politics in the forums per our TOS. We're getting close to that point. I think that this thread has some very valuable info in it right now, so let's all do our part to keep it open and valuable without sliding *any* further into the political aspects of this.

[Upstate New Yorker]

Folks: A gentle reminder that we won't allow any talk of politics in the forums per our TOS. We're getting close to that point. I think that this thread has some very valuable info in it right now, so let's all do our part to keep it open and valuable without sliding *any* further into the political aspects of this.

I did not mean to cause offense.  All I meant is that we should take an international point of view.  I apologize if my remarks stepped on toes.

[Ben H]

Orion was and is an importer/distributor for other manufacturers, now they have an in-house manufacturer for higher end consumer/prosumer telescopes. It will be interesting to see if long term Orion consolidates the "beginner" telescope lines of Orion and Meade, given they are sourced from the same manufacturers in Asia. 

On the higher end, Meade has really focused their efforts over the last 25+ years on upgrading/improving/continuing to modernize their digital mount systems, but haven't made any great strides in optical innovation beyond the RCX/ACF which was introduced what, 15+ years ago? They're still selling essentially the same Cassegrains, Maksutov-Cassegrains, Newtonians and refractors, at the same sizes and focal lengths as they have for decades. 80s-90s Meade was still experimenting with stuff like Schmidt-Newtonians and Schmidt Cameras, and at the time the 7" Mak-Cass was pretty new and spectacular when compared to the incredibly expensive Questar 7. 

An argument can be made that in the 6" - 16" market they're targeting, the designs Meade uses fill the niches in the market as best they can, but its telling Meade never had something like Fastar, or later the RASA that Celestron introduced. 

It would be great to see Orion push Meade into other optical designs like CDK or Riccardi-Honders that the more boutique manufacturers are exploring. Or even to go in a completely other direction, and use industrial manufacturing processes to bring larger, >16" Dobs into the market at more affordable price points.

 

I'm doubtful very much will change in the next five to ten years, but would be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong. 
 

[danmdak]

 

 

. I worked for them in the late 90's when they introduced the ETX-90.

Ok you HAVE to start a thread on this and tell us your experiences. Please? I think it would be fascinating to hear some of the details only an insider would know. 

[dnrmilspec]

As a retailer and savvy marketer I think Orion will carefully direct Meade where it ought to go.  I doubt anyone is more suited to refine Meade's product like.  And Meade gives Orion a quality name badge in which to expand and compete.  My bet is that Orion with push Meade to the mid-high end market and let its other brands stay where they are. 

[REC]

Actually you have your information mixed up.  

Meade went public on the stock exchange in the early 2000s, but shortly after all the corporate execs cashed out it left the company in a poor position.  This left Meade in a bad position in 2012/2013.  Orion tried to buy Meade(something it had long wanted to do as to get into manufacturing high end optics besides buying from Japan>Taiwan>China as the manufacturing center shifted for optics.  Instead it went to Ningbo-Sunny.  Synta and Ningbo-Sunny are linked through Chinese ownership and the claim Orion made was they were not able to get the most-favored deals on optical equipment. 

This is kind of interesting to me because every product Synta produced and Ningbo-Sunny produced was essentially priced withing a few dollars depending on what name was affixed to the instrument.  Most of Orions claims over the years in various lawsuits were found without merit or without evidence.  The 2019 case was during the height of the Trumpism era where his policies and stacking court systems with pro-conservative judges helped rulings against foreign companies.  At this time Meade was a subsidiary of Ningbo-Sunny and the lawsuit only attached signficance to Meade because it was the only method which the Orion lawyers could find to attack Ningbo-Sunny.  This is since Meade itself never manufactured anything for Orion.  It was a backdoor lawsuit with punitive damages since it was brought in California.  And all those damages were laid upon Meade as the only entity they could leverage. 

From the standpoint of crippling Meade... it simply put a burden on the ownership aspect,  and Meade was only crippled by the pandemic(like other companies have been), as early reports of the bankruptzy clearly showed the company was doing well in business.  Over the 2020/2021 timeframe it must have become clear the only avenue left was a deal with Orion.  Severed from Ningbo-Sunny, there wasn't much of a choice.  So now we have Orion not 'scooping up' a devalued company, but seizing the US operations it has always wanted.  

Lets be clear, Meade itself did not have any responsibility.  It was the parent company that did the so called dirty deed of price-fixing... a claim which is still rather dubious in actual market effect as Orion continued to have substantial sales in this claimed damage time period.  Regardless, Meade was the scapegoat, and so it felt the brunt of the lawsuit and had to declare bankruptzy to protect it's assets while options were evaluated.   

The reality of 2021 is that Orion still purchases equipment from Synta and Ningbo-Sunny, as China/Taiwan produce the lions share of optical lenses, mirrors, etc produced at the consumer and pro-sumer level.  US glass companies are not interested in that market, they got out of it 50 years ago with so many other US companies who either sold off or shut down operations in the US.  Japan>Taiwan>China took over much of all that production though they had been making optics for worldwide consumption as far back as the early 1900s, so it wasn't a huge leap for them.  

Orion is owned by it's workers, which can be both good and bad.  They've never been an optical manufacturer, and have built their business mostly as an importer. Working with Synta, Ningbo-Sunny, and other companies to have products manufactured overseas and imported with their branding on it.  The venerable EQ5/EQ6 mounts are knock-offs of the Japanese mounts and are sold by Synta as Skywatcher and by Orion under it's own branding.  Most of Orions catalog are non-unique company branded products.  It was one reason Orion wanted to buy Meade all those years ago.  Now they have managed it through the bankruptzy settlement.  We can hope and wait and see what comes of it.  

In the fork mount and SCT categories there have really only ever been 2 big names for consumer/academic telescope-mount options... Meade and Celestron.  All other attempts either failed or are high-end limited production models with niche sales.  There isn't any logical reason for Orion to upset that particular paradigm.  Imagine if Apple were bought out by Nokia.... would you destroy the one brand in favor of the other?  No wise saavy corporation would do that.  And in the small world of amateur astronomy it would be far less likely in my opinion despite those who have chips on their shoulder when it comes to Meade.  

Though the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth, I can only have confidence that Orion does the right thing going forward in leaving Meade Instruments as a seperate entity and operation.  

You left out one little important part of Meade's history. In the time between 1999 and 2002? there was a story floating around Wall Street that Meade was going to be an important part, supplier  with a company called Terabeam in Seattle that found a way to use wireless internet via beaming the single terrestrial and it was going to partner up with Meade Optical. It shot the stock up from 10 to as high as $75 before settling back. I made some good money on the trade and one of Meade's dealers sold out around $70 and made a fortune on the stock!

[CharLakeAstro]

I anticipate Orion will maintain Meade as a separate business division, not only in name. I also anticipate Orion will continue purchasing from Meade, Synta, and from Sunny, both for it's Orion division as well as for it's Meade division. Where there are obvious overlaps, there are savings to be had through consolidation. This acquisition will require much diligence to manage, the scrap-heap of mismanaged acquisitions is a very tall mountain. 

[kzar]

Couldn't hurt Meade - especially their non-existing customer service ! 

[wargrafix]

Most likely Orion with strip it apart and market profitable items and kill the rest.

[Geo.]

Meade owed Orion $50 million from an anti-trust judgement and still has pending claims. Sunny paid $5.5 million for Meade. Probably the negotiations only involved how much debt Orion or Sunny would assume. Kind'a reminds me of the Japanese's purchase of Rockefeller center, only to have to dump it at a loss years later. 

 

Actually, I think Televue assembles here in NY. They get their glass from Japan and Taiwan. 'Tis said Al throws away more glass than he sells, but Televue's efforts in Taiwan have improved the quality of the product produced there quite a bit. So probably not so many trips to land fill.

Edited by Geo., 05 June 2021 - 10:25 AM.

[carolinaskies]

Most likely Orion with strip it apart and market profitable items and kill the rest.

The doomsayers keep on being wrong, they continue the poor prognosticating and Big Blue survives and thrashes Celestron again and again.  

[skywolf856]

I hope Orion doesn't impose there current warranty restrictions on all Meade products to Orion only purchases.