"Diamonds In The Rough"

[cdrom9000]

Hello Group, I just came across and found your board...and thought this might be of interest...

SAMC.OB .71 X .74

227M outstanding shares, however, has convertible preferred not yet converted.

Revenue- $961 Million
Positive Cash Flow
Around $300 Million in debt- (Bonds trading at 1.04)
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=SAMC.OB
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=SAMC.OB&annual
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=SAMC.OB
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/cf?s=SAMC.OB

* * * * * * * * * * DESCRIPTION * * * * * * * * * *

Samsonite has been tossed around over the years. The world's #1 Luggage maker, the company makes softside and hardside suitcases, garment bags, and business cases under brand names such as Samsonite and American Tourister.
Samsonite also licenses its name for non-luggage products and has Introduced designer clothing to its product mix. Its products are available in more than 100 countries and through about 200 company-owned stores. In 2005, the company entered an agreement to produce travel gear for Timberland. Ares Partners Management Company owns some 40% of Samsonite and Bain Capital owns about 25%.

Samsonite has been expanding its product offerings, most notably in the high fashion realm. The company hopes American women in particular will adorn themselves in its Black Label line of travel attire and shoes.

Samsonite is also looking to boltster sales in emerging markets such as China, India, Latin America, and the Pacific Rim; more than half of the company's sales come from outside the US. The company's earnings took a serious hit in fiscal 2002 as a result of decreased travel after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

HISTORY:

Shwayder founded Shwayder Trunk Manufacturing in Denver in 1910 to make trunks and hand luggage. Samson, denoting strength, was the company's first brand, and ads featured all the Shwayder brothers standing on top of one suitcase. During the Depression the company was renamed Shwayder Brothers; it introduced the first Samsonite-brand suitcase in 1939. After WWII and the Korean War, the company began making luggage with synthetic materials.

Samsonite (the company's name as of 1965) was bought by Beatrice Foods in 1973. By the early 1980s the company was suffering from foreign competition. LBO firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts bought it in 1986 and spun it off into a new company called E-II. E-II filed for bankruptcy in the early 1990s.

Financiers led by Leon Black brought E-II in 1993 under the name Astrum International. Also that year the company bought rival American Tourister. In 1995 Astrum split up and Samsonite emerged a public company.

The company cut costs and introduced new products in 1996, but much Of Samsonite's inventory was being sold cheaply in its own stores, annoying retail customers. President and COO Luc Van Nevel became CEO in May 1998. A few months later shareholders sued company directors and Black's Apollo Advisors, claiming they issued misleading statements about the company's success, thereby inflating its stock price. (Samsonite obtained shareholder litigation insurance to cover the costs of the suit which was settled for around $24 million.)

By the end of 1999, Apollo and Francois Pinault's investment company,Artemis, had upped their stakes in Samsonite to a combined 60%. In 2001 Samonsite closed its Denver plant, which was its last US manufacturing plant.

MARKETS:
Samsonite products, sold worldwide, are made in Belgium, China, France,Hungary, India, Italy, Mexico, the Slovak Republic, and Spain.

Selected Brands:
American Tourister (worldwide, leisure travel)
Hedgren
Lacoste
Samsonite (worldwide, business travel)
Samsonite Black Label
Trunk & Co

COMPETITORS:
Academy Sports & Outdoors
American Eagle Outfitters
Brown-Forman
Coach
Forward Industries
Gucci
Prada
J. C. Penney
kate spade
Lands' End
L.L. Bean
LVMH
SKB
Tumi
Wilsons The Leather Experts


There seems to be no interest, until just this friday, and RB Board is occupied by myself and few others.
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=SAMC