Meade bought by Jinghua Optical

[John]

This link has been posted on another forum so I thought I'd post it here too:

http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/finance/news/meade-instruments-corp-announces-merger-213327726.html?.intl=us&.lang=en-us

Scott Roberts of Explore Scientific looks set to lead Meade as well now.

[DirkSteele]

How the mighty have fallen, but at this point it was almost envitable. When I started in the City Meade had a market capitalisation of around $200 million and sales well over $100 million per annum. I looked at their most recently published financials just a few days ago and the market cap was a couple of million dollars, they had sales over the last 12 months of around $17 million and cash of just a few hundred thousand dollars and limited revolving credit facilities available.

The transaction will give a nice little pop in value to the shareholders and hopefully now secure the future of that business and give them the financial firepower needed for a proper R&D budget.

What a transformation of the industry backing our hobby. When I started with my first scope over 20 years ago, you would have struggled to turn a page in Sky and Telescope magazine without coming across an advert for Meade or Celestron, really the 2 big players, and now both are in other hands.

[andrew63]

Thanks for posting John. It's good that Meade will still be trading but will we end up with more of the same with just different stickers on.

I wonder if those cheap Maxvisions will now appear with a meade badge back on and at double the cost!

andrew

[foundaplanet]

Thanks for posting John. It's good that Meade will still be trading but will we end up with more of the same with just different stickers on.

I wonder if those cheap Maxvisions will now appear with a meade badge back on and at double the cost!

andrew

Not until everyone here who wants a couple of cheap high end ep's is happy I hope...

Pleased that Meade will still be around.

[trazor]

And again the Chinese move up a notch, whilst the West fall back.

[rowan46]

jinghua optical have been making their lenses for years so no change there. The chances are that there will be an improvement in Meades other equipment in relation to quality control and probably an increase in the amount of meade dealers as they try to compete with synta. (they have to change their marketing strategy as the one they have clearly isn't working) so this could be very good news for amateurs and who knows we may be able to buy es from flo soon.

[JamesF]

I wonder if production will move out of Mexico?

James

[ollypenrice]

Meade committed the unpardonable sin of selling products which were frequently unfit for purpose. I'll be glad to see better firms come to the fore.

Olly

[barkis]

Meade, a big name which never quite fulfilled it's promise.

I wonder how things will improve under Chinese management.

Ron.

[Peter Drew]

Hope the customer support system improves as a result!.

[r3i]

Thanks for the info. Not surprising considering their financial situation over recent years. I wonder what our colleagues in the USA over on the CN forum will make of it?

[Astro_Baby]

They wont be pleased to see another American company disappear to the far east. They arent used to it unlike us Brits who have seen it happen over years.

It the best thing for Meade really, they have been losing cash for ages, the LX80 was a fiasco and customer confidence has most likley taken a nose dive.

I was going to but an ETX125 at one time but two seperate Meade delares told me not to because they were unreliable. I know one dealer who dropped Meade last year citing unreliability as the reason. None of that has been helping Meade.

Maybe now its in Chinese hands the quality will improve and maybe one day ai can own one. i always wanted a Meade bu the reliability issues have always put me off.

Might even be good news for LX80 owners in the long run.

[rowan46]

Thanks for the info. Not surprising considering their financial situation over recent years. I wonder what our colleagues in the USA over on the CN forum will make of it?

There's a couple worrying about the chinese buying america but most of the posts are pretty hopeful. i think the appointment of Scott Roberts has kept them calm

[JamesF]

China has already bought America. Where does the US get the money to buy all their Chinese imports?

James

[Black Knight]

China has already bought America. Where does the US get the money to buy all their Chinese imports?

James

Hehehe, good point . Hopefully this will be good news for Meade owners and customers.

When I first got into this hobby, I really wanted an ETX125 but my dealer at the time (this was before I joined SGL) couldn't get hold of one quickly, and I wanted something now! I ended up with a Skywatcher 200P on an EQ5 Pro, which as it turned out was probably the better choice for what I wanted anyway. Although I didn't know it at the time

[Davey-T]

Perhaps this is an opertunity for Meade to do a complete redesign of their fork mount, as the fork mount design is intrinsically more stable than an EQ flopping around all over the place.

Means the scope and mount are bound together but if they could make a stable reliable long focal length imaging system people would buy it.

Something along the Mesu design lines with a big RA and Dec friction drive and turn it out at a competitive price and they could take over the world again.

Dave

[DaveS]

What a transformation of the industry backing our hobby. When I started with my first scope over 20 years ago, you would have struggled to turn a page in Sky and Telescope magazine without coming across an advert for Meade or Celestron, really the 2 big players, and now both are in other hands.

Humph. When I started out no self-respecting astronomer would dream of buying a telescope. You started with two discs of glass, some grit and "How to make a telescope".

By the sweat of thy labours did thou show fully thy worthiness to join the Mysterious and Hermetic Order of Amateur Astronomers

/Grumpy old man

Arr, when I were a lad we 'ad real telescopes

/grumpy old man

My how things have changed. Thank Heavens

[Tim]

That's the thing, Meade and Synta helped make it so that you didn't HAVE to grind your own mirror!

Quality competition is usually good for driving an industry as a whole forwards. Let's hope the same is true of Meade now.

[kirkster501]

Its a very good development. They get the Meade brand - which still has value - and they can now redevelop it. Good luck to them I say.

The Chinese have enabled many, many more people to enjoy our hobby than would have been the case if everything was made here or in the US, and they can make it with much better quality as well.

[cs1cjc]

For the UK and European based astronomers and distributors this must be good news. Meade are properly set up with distributors here; quite unlike that other JOC subsidiary Explore Scientific who turned so many of us into importers, because the only way to get stuff was from the US rather than locally.

However I do note that Telescope House had Explore Scientific eyepieces at a reasonable price on display at IAS which are currently unobtainable in the US and which in some cases are not listed on their web site.

[Ben Ritchie]

Despite everything I have a fondness for Meade. Sure there was lots of huff and puff, mid-90s the first dozen pages of S&T seemed to be Meade advertising copy trumpeting 'the optical standard', 'research grade', and 'images like these your first night out', but the LX200 GPS I had was a decent bit of kit and did what it did very well (even if it did what Meade claimed it did rather less well ). The wheels seem to have started falling off about a decade ago when the QC problems started to creep in around the time of the RCX (great optics, awful electronics) and the 'advanced-RC' nonsense. Since then it seems to have been lurching from one disaster to the next. Hopefully now they'll have the resources to finally get R&D done and perform QC on the products they ship.

You started with two discs of glass, some grit and "How to make a telescope".

By the sweat of thy labours did thou show fully thy worthiness to join the Mysterious and Hermetic Order of Amateur Astronomers

/Grumpy old man

Arr, when I were a lad we 'ad real telescopes

/grumpy old man

Luxury! When I were a lad I had to spend three years grinding coal while being bludgeoned with a f/15 singlet before we were allowed near glass...

[barkis]

Humph. When I started out no self-respecting astronomer would dream of buying a telescope. You started with two discs of glass, some grit and "How to make a telescope".

By the sweat of thy labours did thou show fully thy worthiness to join the Mysterious and Hermetic Order of Amateur Astronomers

/Grumpy old man

Arr, when I were a lad we 'ad real telescopes

/grumpy old man

My how things have changed. Thank Heavens

Some are still doing it Dave.

Ron.

[DaveS]

*sigh*

If I weren't so cack-handed I'd be too. I will admit to buying the mirrors for my 8" (Hangs head in shame) but dad and I did build most everything else except eyepieces.

I suppose if one were truly dedicated one would dig up the sand and potash to make one's own glass and grind the lenses for eyepieces too. Actually making plossels from a pair of salvaged doublets is possible (Though of questionable purpose).

Hmm..Do I sense a "Four Yorkshire-men" moment coming on?

[barkis]

I could cope quite well grinding, polishing and figuring mirrors.

I even built, or should I say modified a grinding machine, which originally resembled a Combine Harvester due to the belt drives it employed .

But, I fear I would suffer severe cack handedness If tackling eyepiece construction.

Ron.

[ollypenrice]

Hehehe, good point . Hopefully this will be good news for Meade owners and customers.

When I first got into this hobby, I really wanted an ETX125 but my dealer at the time (this was before I joined SGL) couldn't get hold of one quickly, and I wanted something now! I ended up with a Skywatcher 200P on an EQ5 Pro, which as it turned out was probably the better choice for what I wanted anyway. Although I didn't know it at the time

Not 'probably' but absolutely certainly!

Olly