MFJ closing down manufacturing facilities effective May 17th 2024

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Found this info on Wikipedia of all places:

Company type Private
Industry Electronics
Founded 1972
Headquarters Starkville, Mississippi
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Martin F. Jue (founder), Steven Pan (vice president)
Products Amateur radio equipment
Revenue $12,600,000 (2010)
Number of employees
150 (at main location)

 

This is indeed a major loss. Sigh....

 

Thanks Dave, but I am unable to start a post here.
Lyman
KE8YSJ

 

I have a question. I was just about to order an Ameritron Amp and while they will honor the one year Warranty, what happens in Month 13? Or in three years from now? Can anyone recommend a good and reputable Amplifier repair company that services Ameritron?
Thank you,
Lyman
KE8YSJ

 

150 employees and only $12.5 million. Company I worked for in 1980 has 35 employees and $42 million sales.

 

What does Missouri have to do with this?

 

While some find this sad,I'm not the least bit upset by the news.
The last 7 years I've been a ham,my MFJ gear has been disappointing.
Which was a surprise since I broke down back in the 90s and got a MFJ901b tuner that I absolutely loved since it could tune a pushpin.

Quality obviously dropped off since because each piece I bought the last few years fell apart,wasn't built correctly,damaged other gear,or just didn't work like it should .
Dosy Watts =MFJ watts = 0 watts eventually.
Power supplies fried,tuners had screws damaging meter housings,antenna switches broke,antennas came apart.
I am hoping someone will take the gear ,fix it the way it should have been built in the first place and pick up where they left off.
Old adage,you get what you pay for.


I like buying my quality gear second hand because it was built right the first time
I would like my 901b back though

 

Martin
Just didn't do a good job setting his company up the last 5 or 10 years for a sale. And then the virus hit and messed up more things according to him.

I've been involved in a number of mergers and Acquisitions over the years. Small companies like his are difficult to find buyers, particularly the way he had his set up.

What surprises me is he just shut the whole thing down. Several of those companies have good value on their own.
Now that he's announced to shut down, the value of those divisions have dropped in half, and more everyday since he doesn't have his people and production lines in operation.
It's hard to find investment bankers. I really thought the owner of GigiParts was also also looking at them pretty heavy.

 

Well they have access to the books, they know exactly what the assets are worth and have a fair idea on how much goodwill should be on top of that based on trading figures. Anyway, the point is, none of us have access to that data and we do not know what the offer was that was made. But knowing MFJ he would have put a fair value on the business, as history has shown he prices his items fairly.

 

I never did find who his business broker was, and I have a pretty complete list of brokers in the United States, especially in the southeast.
He just really didn't have his business set up to sell. Which is the case for many long time family owned small businesses, making them difficult to sell. And unattractive to equity investment groups.

I don't know how prepared the sale and how extensive the due diligence package and putting the package together was.

By shutting it down he's lost all kind of value, even on the divisions that were attractive.

 

just spitballing here 3-5 mil ?
what you think ?

 

His annual sales were more than that but I think his profit margin had dropped considerably, not even sure what his profit was since 2020. He must be hemorrhaging money if he had to shut the thing down.

So you'Your numbers are probably in the ballpark. It's worth less now since he made the announcement.

 

If that was the price, I think that I, and many other hams, could pull of an acquisition of MFJ. I'm too old to consider doing such a thing now. I'm just a few years behind Martin Jue. It would be nice if the ham radio community had an idea of what he wanted for the business. There is likely someone that would consider buying it.

 

I wish Martin the very best.

His products have enabled countless hours of enjoyment, skill, and learning for 10s of thousands of hams. There is really no one who can take his place, nor the enterprise he built.

73
Chip W1YW