[David A]

AMSTERDAM (DOW JONES)--Royal Philips NV (PHG) announced Wednesday that it has acquired New Zealand-based Selecon, a designer, manufacturer and distributor of professional theatrical and architectural lighting fixtures.
Under the agreement, Philips will acquire the business assets of Selecon New Zealand Limited, Selecon UK Limited, Selecon North America LLC and Aureol Lighting Limited.
No financial details on the transaction were disclosed.
Selecon has become part of the Entertainment Group within the Philips Professional Luminaires business, which also encompasses the Vari-Lite and Strand Lighting business operations.

[simschr]

Looks like Philips are re-branding Selecon as Strand-Selecon

More info -http://www.seleconlight.com/

[gareth]

I wonder what this means for the future of the SL, Quartet and Coda? I notice that the bottom of the Strand Lighting product page for lanterns now features a big clickable Selecon banner which links directly to the products section of the Selecon website ...

[Bryson]

Given that the Pacific, Acclaim and Hui/Lui are superior: not good things, I imagine!

I do find it odd that people choose today to announce such things, though...

[david.elsbury]

You and me both, Bryson. It had me wondering...

[dbuckley]

As a Kiwi - I'm now quite worried...

[RockElectrics]

Hi David,

Sorry to hear you're worried!

We're quite excited about it.
For us it is business as usual.

Philips purchased us because of our strength as a successful luminaire manufacturer.
We see this as a great opportunity to continue doing what we do well and to take further steps forward.

If you have any concerns you're most welcome to contact us

Regards,

Abby Clearwater
NZ Customer Services
www.Seleconlight.com

[gareth]

RockElectrics, on 1 Apr 2009, 11:37 PM, said:

We're quite excited about it.
For us it is business as usual.

I imagine it's a fairly positive thing from the point of view of Selecon.

However, from here it looks like another nail in the coffin of Strand. And given that Strand Lighting (or Rank Strand, or Strand Electric) was, for many years and to many people in this country, the quintessential stage lighting manufacturer and a thoroughly British company to boot, it's rather sad to see this happening to them at the hands of an international conglomerate . The company is already a mere shadow of its former self, and I really can't see this helping.

[Bryson]

To be fair, let the best product win!

IMO the Selecon range of luminaires outperforms the Strand equivalents in many ways.

The real shame about Philips/Genlyte owning Strand is that they effectively killed the console business by choosing the inferior Horizon platform over the next-gen Strand platform. But sadly, that's all done now. This news is good news.

(Assuming Philips don't make the same mistake as last time and force Selecon into making Quartets and SLs! )

[dbuckley]

RockElectrics, on 2 Apr 2009, 12:37 PM, said:

Hi David, Sorry to hear you're worried! We're quite excited about it. For us it is business as usual.

Hi Abby

I'm not worried about the future of Selecon the brand, or the company, as (and I've noted this before many times), Selecon products rock, and are a great example of Kiwi world-beating products, but now that Selecon are a wee bit of Philips, I do wonder how long Selecon NZ as a manufacturer will survive...?

Heres to hoping that long may it continue to be business as usual.

[Don Allen]

Philips also bought Dynalite recently Philips acquires Dynalite in Australia so they are on a buying spree.

[Aussie_DrG]

There is so much that is interesting about this event. Philips actually made out like bandits when they bought Genlyte. Imagine moving a billion $ into US currency, and because of the crisis, they effectively double their money. If you look at the business model Philips have applied so far in acquisitions, they buy a company that has something fundamentally "good" about it, cut out the crap, and after a couple of years, things turns around. Varilite are actually making good lights now, and Strand actually made a profit for the first time in years. The console might have been a dog to start with, but have you taken a look at the latest version. I have. With the latest BETA version - if I were ETC I would be worried.

I should declare a bias - I sell consoles including Palette (yeah, yeah - Some people are just weird)

Selecon, like every manufacturer out there, has its handicaps, but a deal like this means they can spend more time/money on R&D and get rid of some of the overhead costs.

For Strand, it means they DON'T need to spend money designing yet another light. In their own US market they can just hit competitors over the head with a product that people already like and use. The REALLY interesting thing is what is happening elsewhere...

Like it or not, the whole world of lighting is going through real change. Some companies will fold, some will merge or be swallowed, and some will evolve to survive. 12 months from now, you won't recognise the manfacturing and distribution landscape.

[StNic54]

love my selecon, not high on strand - let's see what they'll do - just don't screw it up

[jagardner1984]

At a guess, given all of Strand's lantern products are in need of a refresh, as they are now quite old designs, and Selecon are marching ahead with newer and better products, Philips will be hoping the new "Strand-Selecon" company will mean they can withdraw all of the Strand products, thus saving them developing new ones, and killing a healthy chunk of the competition at the same time.