Gibson “running out of time — rapidly”

Nashville Post:

“Gibson Brands, Inc. today announced that the company made a $16.6 million coupon payment to holders of its $375 million, 8.875% senior secured notes due 2018.”

That simple statement issued a week ago — at all of 26 words, it’s less than a quarter the length of Gibson’s boilerplate company description that accompanied it — suggests a business-as-usual tone of a company taking care of its contractual commitments.

But the situation facing the iconic Nashville-based music instrument maker, which has annual revenues of more than $1 billion, is far from normal: CFO Bill Lawrence recently left the company after less than a year on the job and just six months before $375 million of senior secured notes will mature. On top of that, another $145 million in bank loans will come due immediately if those notes, issued in 2013, are not refinanced by July 23.

Reading through all of this, things do indeed look dire. But I can’t imagine the Gibson brand going away. I’d be more concerned with new hands coming in to run the company and changing a process which produces some of the finest guitars in the world, diluting a brand synonymous with guitar craft.

Damn.

[H/T Josh Centers]