Summary
- Takara Tomy is losing one of its best licenses, and its revenue outlook is negative for the next two years.
- The company has failed in its effort over the past six years to diversify from a declining Japanese toy market.
- The company has incurred massive losses since 2012.
- It has hence become a takeover target and this possibly from the side of Hasbro.
A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with an old friend of mine, a senior buyer at a large Japanese toy retailer, who asked me whether I had seen the announcement about Pokemon pulling its license from Takara Tomy (OTC:TKHIY) and giving it to Wicked Cool Toys Company as of July 2018. I said that I had, and the follow-up question was whether I thought it likely that one of the two large American toy companies would buy Takara Tomy. Japanese executives are not in the habit of asking flippant questions, and this one made me think that there could in fact something major be happening and meriting further investigation.
First, some background.
In a Toy News Magazine article dated April 6, 2011, I said that:
“Takara Tomy is buying RC2 and challenging the leading US and European toy manufacturers on their own turf. With this move the company is transforming itself from a local giant into one with a decent presence in all major markets and a viable competitor to Mattel, Spin Master and JAKKS. I have omitted Hasbro from that statement because there are ties between the two companies effectively ruling out competition between them.”
There was a solid reason why Takara Tomy was anxious to diversify away from its home market. Japan toy sales have been declining for since 2010 due to negative population growth, a trend that is unlikely to reverse itself in a hurry:
Leonardo wrote:Take your lips off my pipe!
I would imagine two possibilities, one being that TT essentially ceases to exist with Hasbro making any determination on what happens to the personnel and capital resources. The other would be something like what happened with Kenner, where the branding might get used on selected items (hi there, Movie Masterpiece!)fenrir72 wrote:If Hb does a friendly take over, well who knows what happens next? They are friends I hope.
Hasbro watched from the shadows while Takara serviced us? I thought that was a private moment.Caminus9000 wrote:TakaraTomy has always taken the initiative of servicing their fans and giving us the best quality of their toys while Hasbro hid in the shadows looking after themselves and constantly neglecting us.
Caminus9000 wrote:*sign* if this happens Hasbro will destroy the entire Masterpiece Movie series before it even started. Either they'll take control on who could be next for release which is the LAST thing we want because all they'll end up giving us is different versions of bumblebee or let their poopy designer (john warden) take over on making them.
TakaraTomy has always taken the initiative of servicing their fans and giving us the best quality of their toys while Hasbro hid in the shadows looking after themselves and constantly neglecting us.
Randomhero wrote:I love it when people say Hasbro doesn’t care about fans while 95% of 84-87 has been remade with modern day engineering and 3 two foot tall city bots that have been made. It’s just sad and embarrassing
Silverwing wrote:Also, I feel compelled to give the obligatory:
One for each year of the Movieverse's decade strong tenure. Here's to a few more explosive years!
Rated X wrote:Im down with a one size fits all worldwide deco if it means "platinum" style figures for everyone and the death of the el cheapo Has-deco. No more off white and grey plastic and non painted hubcaps are a good thing. No more ridiculous prices for 50 cents worth of extra paint is also a good thing. As the Franchise ages and starts to gear more towards lifelong adult fans rather than kids, Hasbro might be influenced by the Japanese to make stuff more collector oriented and gimmick free. The transformers franchise needs more Japanese influence and less influence from corporate middle America.
Leonardo wrote:Take your lips off my pipe!
Rated X wrote:Im down with a one size fits all worldwide deco if it means "platinum" style figures for everyone and the death of the el cheapo Has-deco. No more off white and grey plastic and non painted hubcaps are a good thing. No more ridiculous prices for 50 cents worth of extra paint is also a good thing. As the Franchise ages and starts to gear more towards lifelong adult fans rather than kids, Hasbro might be influenced by the Japanese to make stuff more collector oriented and gimmick free. The transformers franchise needs more Japanese influence and less influence from corporate middle America.
Randomhero wrote:I love all this ridiculousness. End of masterpiece, end of retools in Legends etc. it reminds me of when Disney acquired Marvel and when Disney acquired Lucasfilm and people freaking out thinking things were just gonna get worse and it didn’t.
If Hasbro acquired Takara tajara woudlnt disappear or lose stuff. They would just be able to have Hasbro’s backing and funding on stuff to sell their stuff. That’s what happens with a lot of these things.
Randomhero wrote:I love all this ridiculousness. End of masterpiece, end of retools in Legends etc. it reminds me of when Disney acquired Marvel and when Disney acquired Lucasfilm and people freaking out thinking things were just gonna get worse and it didn’t.
Black Hat wrote:Let's seriously hope this isn't happening. If it went ahead we'd have no "not completely crap but a bit more expensive" choice- it'd be Hasbro's underpainted figures with poorly applied stickers and no elbows or nothing. The MP line would either disappear completely or go to sh!t. And if this DID happen then Transformers as a brand would probably go under fairly quickly (contrary to popular belief, the collector market is bigger than most realize; 20% of Hasbro's TF profits are from collectors, and whilst that doesn't sound like much, it is a LOT of money from a company's perspective. Collectors abandoning the line would probably destroy Transformers completely, as the sharp fall in profits would cause the imbeciles in charge at Hasbro to cut back on the kid-oriented stuff, to the point quality would fall so low that even kids would begin to get sick of it.
Fiction would probably suffer too. With the brand entirely owned by an American company we'd most likely lose out on all Japanese influence on the fiction (no chance of that Trigger-produced anime I dream of) and the fiction would probably fall in line with the likes of modern Marvel; that is, pandering to people who don't even buy the things they want to change, and excluding the existing fanbase.
On the plus side, if this did happen, Hasbro might sell the brand to someone else with an actual idea of what they're doing. And who knows, the death of collector-oriented mainline toys might mean we see a return of CHUG scaled stuff in the 3P realm again.
I mean, I highly doubt this will happen, as this is an article from July and nothing has happened since then, but if it does, the Transformers might finally shed itself of the ball and chain that is Hasbro and their incompetence.
Black Hat wrote:Let's seriously hope this isn't happening. If it went ahead we'd have no "not completely crap but a bit more expensive" choice- it'd be Hasbro's underpainted figures with poorly applied stickers and no elbows or nothing. The MP line would either disappear completely or go to sh!t. And if this DID happen then Transformers as a brand would probably go under fairly quickly (contrary to popular belief, the collector market is bigger than most realize; 20% of Hasbro's TF profits are from collectors, and whilst that doesn't sound like much, it is a LOT of money from a company's perspective. Collectors abandoning the line would probably destroy Transformers completely, as the sharp fall in profits would cause the imbeciles in charge at Hasbro to cut back on the kid-oriented stuff, to the point quality would fall so low that even kids would begin to get sick of it.
Fiction would probably suffer too. With the brand entirely owned by an American company we'd most likely lose out on all Japanese influence on the fiction (no chance of that Trigger-produced anime I dream of) and the fiction would probably fall in line with the likes of modern Marvel; that is, pandering to people who don't even buy the things they want to change, and excluding the existing fanbase.
On the plus side, if this did happen, Hasbro might sell the brand to someone else with an actual idea of what they're doing. And who knows, the death of collector-oriented mainline toys might mean we see a return of CHUG scaled stuff in the 3P realm again.
I mean, I highly doubt this will happen, as this is an article from July and nothing has happened since then, but if it does, the Transformers might finally shed itself of the ball and chain that is Hasbro and their incompetence.
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