DCS & Fisher Paykel: Breathtakingly Unconfirmed Report #3

(RUMOR CONFIRMED OCTOBER 8)
Dynamic Duo?
The chatter mill is rife with rumors of DCS hitching its mule to Fisher & Paykel's eastwardly expanding wagon train.  Both parties have denied the rumors to us.....and so we say in advance, this may be a false rumor.

But since it's just us talking here, let's game it out.  What would this thing look like if it were true?

Advantages:

• Leverages Fisher's gold-plated direct-to-dealer sales force with the addition of DCS sales.
• Fits like a glove: high-end Pro and BBQ lines with near zero overlap of the F&P offerings.
• A US production location 20 miles from Fisher's US HQ, and 3 miles from the beach.
• Global market growth:  Just think, 3.7 million zealous New Zealanders each with a DCS range to heat the barn during sheep milking season.   (there's a little bit of product training obviously required down there)
• Entrée into DCS clients GE + Maytag, but F&P is deep into Whirlpool's cute blue spandex shorts and so it's tough to bend over backwards while jammed in there.
• A commercial cooking line....which is, I guess, nice to have.
• The creation of a top-tier horizontally integrated brand in the image of Dacor, Sub-Zero, Viking and Thermador
  
  Implications:
• Expect a cliff-like drop in DCS sales from day 2 onward.  The math here is not that hard, get a pencil and follow along.  
  Distributors do not promote lines with no future, therefore the Paykel-ites MUST shift the lines....like yesterday, to F&P's direct sales staff.  Sales changes like this are ugly affairs where the new guys are learning about the product and complaining about the lack of support materials and price sheets while at the same time the old distributor sales guys have internalized a single guiding principal of vengeance for the wrong done them.  How quickly and well planned the transition is executed will be the difference between a 12 month recovery of sales or a plodding multi-year rebuilding process.  On day 3 look for a dealer inundation of spiffs, display programs, extended payment plans, and other assorted promotions falling from the sky like rain from everyone looking to snag the market share now in play.
• DCS is probably the anchor brand for every distributor that carries it.  If the rumor turns true, we predict a panicked frenzy as distributors go into survival mode in search of replacement revenue, and companies like Blue Star, Capital, Excel, Five Star, and Jade go in search of distributor upgrade.  Will even BSH make an entrance to grab ALMO and to exit their personal hell it knows by the name of HADCO?  Look for line poaching, consolidations, closures...and blood in the streets.  This clash will be in living color, baby.  If this rumor turns true, we predict a blood bath, a vision of carnage unseen in this industry since, ummmm, 2002, but this will be so much worse.  There are just no players available out there with the sales or the breadth of product to replace DCS.

So somebody somewhere pour me a drink and slide over the Lazy-Boy, it's fight night fellas and the knives are out.  This you do not want to miss.
      
Of course only if it's true.

CONCLUSION:  This is an UNCONFIRMED rumor, but if it's not true it should be.  (RUMOR CONFIRMED OCTOBER 8)