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If they already made a release post about the projects this seems to continue with that. My question is why change the CEO.
Definitely remember reading about APR’s expansion, aren’t they gonna make wheels now? Possibly put together BBK’s (not a big deal probably)?
If they already made a release post about the projects this seems to continue with that. My question is why change the CEO.
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I think it’s common in private equity takeovers to overhaul top management. Depends on how the private equity group wants to run the company. I.e., quick-flip or long-term investment.
It’s very possible that they just bought out the previous CEO and installed one of their guys. Maybe wellarmed can correct me if I’m wrong here.
This’d really be much better if APR was ahead of all this. Showing expansion of the company as it’s happening would’ve made this all look a lot better. This coupled with the other mounting issues really have effected my confidence in the APR brand.
They also removed the COO. Being CEO is almost irrelevant to the size of equity held. Granted, in this case since he no longer had 51% equity, he couldn’t remain CEO if the board wanted to replace him.
It’ll be interesting to see how APR will be run as a professional company. My thought is that some of the less “professional” individuals will either be silenced or asked to leave.
Dave
A lot of fixation over on Audizine seems to be on my earlier comments about blown engines.
I should clarify the statement again:
Arin’s ETAs, updates, etc are irrelevant. The product will come out when they feel that it is safe and complete. Blown engines take time and money to replace, then additional tuning and testing to ensure that it is ready for release. This leads to increased capital expenditures which may delay/cancel the project. Or not, who knows. Depends on the new owners.
Dave
Audizine is a massive collection of misplaced fixation. Thanks again for helping bring this to light.
Haha “think 1 week vs 2 weeks”. Good to see some self deprecating humour!
You can be king or be rich, but you cannot be both. As startups grow in size, the founder usually has a crossroads in which he must choose between what’s best for him or whats best for the company. Does he want to continue to control every decision in return for slower growth? Or take a Series A funding round with a solid cash flow to evaluate and determine enterprise value, ensuring future success.
It looks like Stephen chose the latter. Its a lot more of a challenge going from selling exhausts to actually manufacturing your parts in house. The cost of tooling alone can make a grown man quiver. This is just a guess, but Mangrove probably gave over +$8 million in exchange for a preferred layer of equity with some teeth (basically debt with ownership rights), new CEO, and board seats.
How much of the pie did Stephen give up? That is the million dollar question.
I’d imagine that he gave up a significant amount. There’s also another member on the board (William/Bill Cooke) from Taglich Private Equity (firm in New York). Between two equity firms, with Mangrove controlling a significant amount of seats on the board of directors (indicative of equity stake), I find it very unlikely that Stephen has a significant chunk of equity remaining.
Through that AL SoS website, I also noticed that APR Aviation LLC (their 4 million dollar private jet) and APR Holdings LLC were both dissolved.
Your post certainly mentioned several positive reasons why external financing would be needed. I’m sure there are also many negative reasons why it would be needed.
Dave
The way I understand it, Stephen carries a lot on the left side of his personal balance sheet, and apr is not the majority. So It could be as simple as a family member experiencing health problems, wanting to move closer to home. I don’t think there was significant money pressure involved with this decision.
Stephen’s personal balance sheet is not relevant to the discussion at hand.
Sorry, but I disagree and think it is most relevant to the discussion.
Stephen was only one of three owners prior to Mangrove and Taglich. The other two owners no longer are listed, indicating that they sold their shares of equity. Given the new construction of the board of directors and that it was sold to two equity firms (look up what equity firms specialize in), you can have a good guess as to how events occurred.
The board of directors appoints CEOs. They chose to remove Hooks and put in the CFO Mark as acting CEO.
Dave
Your interpretation of the events is entirely opinion based. Nothing that you insinuate can be proven, and the facts behind the case are not known. End of story. I am also purely speculating, and have qualified my statements as such. You portend to know something everybody else does not, because you had a run in with Arin and did an LLC lookup.
For example, you are assuming the other two owners were on par with Stephen. Now I would go the other way, as he is most probably the money man & therefore the super majority owner. What does that mean? Voting rights. He probably chose to sell. However you envision pitchforks and bankruptcy lawyers.
The LLC documents are nothing more than a stamp of approval that that the lawyers have been paid, not some clue to the inner politics of APR.
careful…you’re doing the same thing. Your opinion of what he knows is just your opinion. Fact is, he may know a whole lot more than you think. If you don’t mind looking silly, keep going.
Crew pretends to be privy to the deal mechanics, I seriously doubt that is the case, but nevertheless can admit there is a sliver of probability.
It’s a private deal that will most probably never get shared with the general public. So I’m not sure how anyone will be proven correct, and that is my point.
That wasn’t your point.
Your point was this
[quote]You portend to know something everybody else does not, because you had a run in with Arin and did an LLC lookup.
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That is wrong. How the hell do you know where he got his ‘opinion’…you think he searched the internet and that’s it? Some people just have access to information that others don’t. Because crew does post about it, don’t belittle him or his knowledge of it because you yourself don’t know much about the situation. Hell I know more about the APR situation than you could search in 6 months. Are you going to tell me I don’t because there’s not much on your google machine? Do I have a secret axe to grind with APR so I made up some stuff? Because that’s what you just said to crew.
It’s not always about the internet. People are far more willing to share information than webpages constrained by legalese.
#datStasisdoe
Speaking of private deals… how would you feel about a REVO/APR merger/acquisition? 
There’s plenty of information out there to be found. Whether or not I/someone else wants to pay the fees for said supporting documents is another matter completely.
I saw that the AoA vs APR lawsuit was mentioned on Audizine. Wasn’t too hard to find via google.
http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/uir21q0n/virginia-eastern-district-court/audi-of-america-v-apr-llc/
Non-payment for the R8 race car. Hmm.
Dave
The lawsuit is a little strange. Granted, the R8 is an expensive car, but you’d think a company the size of APR could keep up on the payments for it.