Hi Wayne,
Thanks for the insights.
I got the impression that Perry Oosting was quite happy with the initial DJI investment.
I would also suggest that DJI did invest in Hasselblad for mutual benefits, they either feel they can make Hasselblad profitable or they can find synergies motivating the investments.
But, I cannot see that it is not a new Hasselblad that is coming out of this. Let's not forget that the old Hasselblad essentially failed. Companies need to generate income to finance RND and keep owners and working force happy.
Kevin Raber mentions Volvo being taken over by Geely - but it is different thing.
Volvo sold Volvo Cars to Ford and that time Volvo was doing well. But Volvo felt that they couldn't effort the R&D needed to stay competitive. During the auto makers crisis Ford divested assets to stay afloat, without a government buyout. So they sold Volvo to Geely. Some folks didn't like the Chinese involvement and left Volvo. New owners have their say on things. Two of those guys work for my employer now and we have talked about stuff over a cup of coffe…
Volvo doubled production since the Geely takeover and has now four plants, Gothenburg (Sweden), Ghent (Belgium) and two new factories in China. Previous year was their best, ever. So a Swedish company owned by Chinese company can be a story of great success.
Just to say, Volvo always sought a partner to R&D, working with Renault didn't work out. The engineering staff wouldn't cooperate with Renault.
I would suggest that the new mirrorless solutions will be good for medium format. Now it seems it is confirmed that the Fuji GFX will have electronic shutter and electronic first curtain, that is a good thing.
My take is that the X1D doesn't need ES/EFCS (even if Ming Thein once stated it has EFCS, which does little sense without a mechanical second curtain) as it has a leaf shutter and has no mirror inducing vibrations.
Future knows what future will bring…
Best regards
Erik
Certainly what you say can be true, and certainly all we can do is speculate. However, I read into the situation a little differently. It is not uncommon for shareholders to inject capital back into a company. By nature that dilutes the value of any shareholders who do not put in their porportionate share. This is typical for a company who has no ability to raise capital via conventional methods (coporate bonds, loans, etc.)
There are also various reasons a venture capital firm elects not to infuse the cash, one of which is their funds are also limited. I'm not familiar with Ventizz, but I"ve worked and been involved in a couple of deals through VC buyouts. Most of these firms create a "fund" which is done by raising investment capital from various sources. Many of the funds are limited by an amount as well as time. Once the fund money has been invested or the time limit has been reached, it really doesn't have an easy source of additional funds.
I'm not speculating at all that this was the case, but it is a pretty complex situation. If the investment group didn't really have the resources to help Hasselblad ramp up production but felt that it would help turn the company around, a logical course of action would be to allow themselves to become a minority stakeholder to someone willing to push in the funds to get things going, speculating that after things turned around their valuation would improve.
As I mentioned, based on the trajectory and track record of Hasselblad, this seems to be a positive step, since the current trajectory seemed a little sketchy.