1andrew1

Fraser Group's 8.9% Hornby stake is substantial but Hornby is currently well and truly controlled by Phoenix who own a whopping 73.4% of the company. It could be that Ashley is a bit bored having handed over managing Frasers Group to his son-in-law, and he certainly doesn't need the money!

In this video at 13:47, an Airfix retailer who is a critical friend of Hornby Hobbies describes how the company is difficult to order from with no online portal. This would seem a priority for the new management to tackle.

This could be good news for improving Hornby's systems and logistics. https://polaris.brighterir.com/public/Hornby/news/rns/story/wv4d40w

Rumours always float around and can be circular in nature and shared in good faith. In this instance, the facts don't seem to bear out the rumour. Hattons' total costs in y/e June 2013 were £8.5m. It ended the year with stocks of just under £2.6m and started the year with stocks of just over £2.6m. (Similar figures apply to y/e June 2012 and y/e June 2014). Hattons announced its closure in January 2024 and Tiering ended in November 2023. Plenty of time to decide not to close the business at that stage. After all, Hattons didn't seem to have any plans for who would purchase its moulds or brand name in January when it announced its closure. I doubt few think Hornby can do no harm commercially. I think many are aware it's a hard business to make money in, as the history of European and US brands and most recently Hattons bears testimony to.

I assume they're talking about third-party brands like Hornby and Dapol here. If you've purchased a Hattons-branded product from Hattons then I think you've hit a brick wall. Current mould owners Accurascale or Rails may be able to sell you a spare part.

I'm not sure there's any actual evidence that Hattons saved Hornby from bankruptcy. If there was, we would have seen it reported and Hornby would have had to disclose it. We know that Hattons disposed of the Hornby Dublo stock when Lines Brothers acquired Meccano and there are strong indications that Hattons may have acquired large stocks of slow-selling lines from various manufacturers at advantageous prices. But neither of these equates to saving Hornby from bankruptcy. Hattons' decision to shut up shop in an orderly fashion was taken after Hornby's unpopular Tier system was abolished. We don't know if Hattons felt it had permanently lost a base of customers because of this or that most had returned.

Did Hornby sell them the stock? I thought the Corgi Model Club just licensed the brand and the designs from Hornby and did their own sourcing. From their website "Hornby have given us the exclusive rights to re-produce some of the rarest and sought after models from their 1960’s catalogues."

And let's not forget that the original Hornby brand owner diversified into model cars and trains from its primary business of Meccano.

From Hornby's website https://polaris.brighterir.com/public/Hornby/news/rns/story/rn44ojx

Interestingly, the Corgi Model Club also distributes Dinky Toys although most stocks seem to be exhausted. https://corgimodelclub.com/pages/dinky001

Likely a coincidence, but the front web page for Corgi Premiums now looks like this. Sofa.com is a Frasers brand.

Another update to the ModelTrainStuff.com webpage, below (The Facebook page hasn't been updated suggesting the new owners of the website don't have access to it yet.)

Mike Ashley has stepped back from managing Frasers but he's the company's biggest investor. Whilst he sounds a pain to be in charge of a football club, Frasers has rescued many high street businesses that might have closed if he hadn't acquired them eg Sofa.com, Game, Gieves & Hawkes and Evans.

Autumn 2024 release so not manufactured yet. The track colour has also changed from red to grey. I think if a production slot had been committed, they would not have announced the range was being discontinued until after the last shipment. I think it's possible they've had a change of heart.

Looks like Game could become a more important outlet for Hornby. Not a scenario I would have predicted. Maybe Game are the future partner for more WonderWorks? Share price now up to 29p. https://www.cityam.com/mike-ashleys-frasers-group-significantly-ups-stake-in-model-trains-maker-Hornby/

That's a very good send-off. And quite a humble comment from Richard "I am very sorry my best wasn't good enough to maintain Hattons success."

Is this a reference perhaps to Replica who marketed the Kader-produced parts of the Mainline range until Kader did it itself under the Bachmann brand in 1991? They're now based in Swindon but at the time were in Lambourn, Berkshire. http://www.replicarailways.co.uk/menusep5/menucomhist

I can appreciate why Bachmann might have been risk averse and reduced production run volumes; they could anticipate Hattons' customers spending more on non-Bachmann brands as these are what Hattons would promote. But I would have expected a lot of Bachmann spend to have been re-directed to other big box retailers, along with non-Bachmann accessories. This reduction in sales would likely have contributed to Hattons deciding to close.

Hornby Share price up to 21p.

As customers contracted with Hattons Model Railways Limited Company No 5131251 that's the relevant entity in question and it's that company's responsibility for ensuring that orders are fulfilled, even if the admin for the orders is contracted out to a third party. Whether the company gets wound up is a matter for the owners and there's a long and official process for this. It could even be renamed and be used to do something else eg write software for model shops.

Just a slight correction on General Mills. It did not close down Palitoy. General Mills decided to float its toy and games division as a separate company under the name Kenner Parker in 1985. Palitoy and sister companies like Miro-Meccano in France were rebranded as Kenner Parker too. General Mills decided Kenner Parker should not be in the hobby sector so it sold off its hobby brands. These included Lionel Trains in the US and of course Mainline, Airfix and Meccano in Europe.

Hattons is no big corporate and is 79% owned by one person, Richard Davies. So there wouldn't be the level of due diligence you'd see in the corporate world where the shareholders are distinct from management.

MB Klein was web only before Hatton's purchased it. I can't see Hatton's restarting under its own name in the US as it is relatively unknown there.

Got that one somewhere. A very different and nice cover. This thread reminds me that they all used to be landscape format. Now, perhaps due to the magazine tie-in, they're portrait.

I think that's more an issue for the retailer who becomes a manufacturer (eg Hattons) as they only have one route to market - themselves. In contrast, if Hornby becomes a retailer itself, it shouldn't lose its other retail routes to market.