I guess they'll have to get a Chinese repairman now.
Posted on 06/21/2005 8:18:59 AM PDT by sitetest
SHANGHAI, (Reuters) - Haier Group, the top Chinese appliance maker, and private equity giants Bain Capital and Blackstone Group have bid $1.28 billion for Maytag Corp. (NYSE:MYG - news), topping Ripplewood Holdings LLC's offer for the U.S. washer maker.
Haier's global ambitions would be boosted by adding Maytag, which also makes Hoover vacuums and Amana and Jenn-Air appliances. Maytag has fallen on tough times amid rising raw material costs and competition from lower-cost makers.
Maytag shares rose 6 percent on Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
"Haier would get an instant credible product line," said Longbow Research analyst David MacGregor. "Longer term that could make them a competitive force to be reckoned with."
"We continue to support the Ripplewood transaction," Howard Clark, Maytag's lead director, said in a statement. "However, we also believe that it is incumbent on us to pursue this possibility of achieving a higher price for our stockholders."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Maybe they can improve some of the junk that Maytag has been putting out the last few years.
I guess they'll have to get a Chinese repairman now.
Ping.
Ping.
just say no to feeding the red, slaveholding, dragon.
oops, trumped by always say yes to the green money.
My Maytag washer died three days after the Maytag repairman met his maker...for real.
Dear NautiNurse,
We put all Maytag appliances in our custom-built house four years ago. We've had to have work on the refrigerator (two or three times), the dishwasher, and the clothes washer (Neptune). The dishwasher is currently awaiting a new computer gizmo. We're using a lot of paper plates.
A little disappointing.
sitetest
Oh no, the Chinese want to buy a money losing company.
Another reason for me and my wife to buy whirlpool or kenmore. Both made by the same people and in the US.
Dear TXBSAFH,
After we built the house and moved in, we bought a Kenmore deep freezer. Very nice unit. Which has led to a Craftsman riding mower, a Craftsman pressure washer, and a Kenmore grill. All very nice.
And the Sears service has been pretty good, so far.
Live and learn.
sitetest
Wow.
yep--after being strung along and waiting twelve excruciating weeks for the broken Neptune part, twelve long weeks of coin laundry--I pleaded for salvage compensation and bought a Kenmore.
Well I purchased a new Maytag washer & dryer in 1989 and they're still running strong...
I have a rule, if sears sells it and it is made in the US, I buy it. I have yet to go wrong.
Dear kellynla,
In part because of previous experience and general reputations, we'd gone with all Maytag.
But I guess that their quality in 1989 differed significantly from 2001.
Perhaps Toddsterpatriot is right in his analysis at #9.
sitetest
Dear TXBSAFH,
Well, I remember when we built our new house in 2001, I went looking at riding mowers, and looked at Sears' offerings. They were signficantly more expensive than what I could get elsewhere that seemed comparable, and the sales service was none too good.
I bought something else. When that died three years later, we'd purchased a nice outdoor furniture set at Sears a few months before, and had been shocked at how much better the service had been from our previous experiences. We'd also been surprised that Sears' prices were much more competitive than when we'd shopped there before.
In looking at their riding mowers, we were helped by a highly-professional, knowledgeable gentleman, and found that in the intervening three years, the prices on Craftsman-brand mowers had become significantly more competitive.
Return trips have shown us that the higher level of service now available, and more competitive pricing, were not flukes.
Because they significantly increased the quality of service and the competitiveness of their prices, when we're going to purchase something big for the house, we make sure to see what Sears has to offer.
An American company that has turned around on quality of service (I always felt the Sears brand merchandise was usually pretty good stuff) and price competitiveness.
I'd be a lot more upset if the Chinese were buying Sears.
sitetest
A large number of sear craftsman products are made in china, but a lot is made in the US. And the the service at a sears is that they want you business and are willing to prove it. So like I said if it is made in the US and at a sears I will buy it.
Your permanent favorite trading partner dollars at work brought to you by the 'trade deficits only cost us paper' shillers.
too late. K-Mart already bought Sears.
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