[Yaesu] Motorola and Yaesu..

[Robert Nickels]

Not to turn this into an M&A forum, but I did a little research, and I 
know we all care about the future of this company.

Vertex Standard reported revenue of about $187 million last year, around 
$100M of which came from the US subsidiary (clearly a factor in getting 
MOTs attention).  But they have experienced recent ups and down in 
revenue and aren't making a lot of money - operating margin was in the 
4% range last year.  Of course materials buying power, labor, overhead, 
and the cost of quality (including repairs and warranty expense) are big 
factors that MOT will be focusing on.

They don't separate out revenue by product type, but just using the SWAG 
assumption that ham gear amount to 10% of the total revenue, that would 
be in the $20M USD range.   As a really crude smell-test, that would be 
20,000 radios per year at an average price of $1000 each.   Product mix 
is obviously hard to estimate, but I'm just saying that if they sell one 
big HF rig for every 10 or so HTs, this seems reasonable.

To buy a $20 million/year product line would not be out of reach for a 
smaller manufacturer to acquire.  As a point of comparison, Ten-Tec is 
reported to have annual sales of $36.5M.   Ham radio manufacturing isn't 
a big business, and we all love a bargain ;-)  So in many ways this 
could be a positive opportunity if a buyer comes along and MOT is 
inclined to get rid of a non-strategic part of the acquisition. 

The Japanese government used to ban total foreign ownership but I think 
that has changed.

73 Bob W9RAN