Industry Consolidation

[StevenPro]

I was wondering what you guys thought of all the takeovers, mergers, and acquisitions of late. Rayovac now owns Marineland, Aquarium Systems, Perfecto, and now Tetra. Central Garden and Pets owns All-Glass, Oceanic, Kent, and ESU/Coralife. Do you see the industry eventually being dominated by just a few large companies? Is this a good thing? Will this lead to stronger companies or to simply fewer choices?

 

[Anonymous]

Eventually the whole business will be owned by one money hungry corporation who will introduce robotic lfs employees with the latest nanotechnology encyclopediac brain to answer any and all questions with the following phrase....


"The way to fix that problem is to add _______"

 

[JennM]

Tagging along on this thread, I'm interested to hear peoples' thoughts on this too, as it is of concern to me too.

Not sure what side of the fence I'm on.

Steven, we met at the lecture you gave in Atlanta in January - I was quite impressed with your talk.

Jenn

 

[Anonymous]

I think the more stake a company has in the marine hobby/industry the more manufacturing weight can be thrown around. If you had told me two years ago that I could buy an HQI fixture from the same place I get Eukanuba from, I'd have thought you were crazy. 8O

 

[StevenPro]

Steven, we met at the lecture you gave in Atlanta in January - I was quite impressed with your talk.

Jenn

I remember you, Jenn. I am glad you enjoyed my presentation. I had a great time at ARC and would come back anytime.

 

[Rikko]

A potential benefit here is lobbying power behind larger corporations that will help the hobby against knee-jerk legislation that you often see at municipal levels with reptiles, birds, ferrets, et al.

 

[JeremyR]

I've heard thru the grapevine the FTC is going to get dragged into it for anti-competition reasons. Also, as a bad thing.. these conglomerates do most of their business thru walmart and the like, and that is the future they see in this "hobby", not LFS's. Rayovac or whoever ends up owning marineland and tetra (marineland has changed hands more times than I can remember) is going to sell billions in filters whether the marine hobby continues as we know it or not... freshies in wally world buy the crap out of them.