The $1.3 Billion Hook: Did Private Equity Ruin the World’s Best Fishing Brand?

In this episode, we dive deep into the fascinating (and sometimes salacious) business of fishing. 🌊 We explore the journey of Simms Fishing, the iconic brand that went from a family-owned boutique in 1980 to a $1.3 billion private equity play.

What happens when a brand built on craftsmanship and "Mom and Pop" loyalty scales for the masses? We discuss the recent retail boycott by small fly shops, the impact of the COVID-19 outdoor boom, and why professional guides are starting to ditch their favorite gear.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The Evolution of Simms: From specialized craftsmanship to a $1.3B valuation. 📈
• Private Equity vs. Quality: How "roll-up" strategies and PE ownership can change a brand’s complexion and alienate its core customer base.
• The Big-Box Shift: Why Simms moved away from small shops to cater to giants like Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s. 🛒
• Market Strategy: The "Louis Vuitton" model of addressing different market segments without cannibalizing them.
• Personal Fails: Emily shares her hilariously embarrassing fishing excursions, including catching a glove and—ouch—her own arm. 🩹

Whether you're a business strategist, a private equity enthusiast, or just an angler wondering why your waders feel different, this deep dive into the outdoor industry is for you!

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🎙 Podcast – Strategies, PE 101 & witty banter

📚 Book – On‑Ramp to Exit, full deal life cycle

🛠 Resources – Free templates, guides, tools

🔗 LinkedIn – Follow us for fresh PE insights

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Who Are We?

Three insiders. One mic. All things private equity — explained. Hi 👋 We’re Ed, Rory, and Emily — a CEO, a CFO, and a Chief of Staff — here to demystify the world of private equity. Between us, we’ve sat in the founder’s chair, run PE‑backed companies, and worked on the deal side, so we know the wins, the pitfalls, and the jargon (and we’ll explain it).

Through the Private Equity Experience Podcast, our book On‑Ramp to Exit, and a library of free tools and templates, we share real‑world stories, practical strategies, and insider insights to help you navigate every stage of the PE journey — whether you’re leading a portfolio company, joining a deal team, considering PE, or just PE‑curious.

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Transcript

Emily Sander  0:34  
Aright, some questions to get us warmed up here and get us into our topic. So lightning round questions, this theme might become apparent to our listener, we'll see yes, and these might be directed at Rory, because this is kind of his, his deal 

Emily Sander  0:48  
fresh water or salt water, 

Rory Liebhart  0:50  
fresh water.

Emily Sander  0:53  
Biggest fish you've ever caught? 

Rory Liebhart  0:55  
I caught a 90 pound striped Marlin in 

Emily Sander  0:59  
90 pounds, that's like a child. That's like a teenager. 

Emily Sander  1:04  
Okay, 

Rory Liebhart  1:04  
it was amazing. 

Emily Sander  1:05  
Okay, fishing solo or fishing with friends, 

Rory Liebhart  1:09  
fishing with friends. For me, 

Emily Sander  1:11  
what is the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you while fishing? 

Rory Liebhart  1:15  
Oh, my god,

Rory Liebhart  1:18  
does getting too drunk count? Probably

Rory Liebhart  1:23  
I've broken a couple fishing rods because I was

Rory Liebhart  1:28  
not fighting a fish effectively. So they call it horsing a fish in so high sticking. So you're fighting a fish and but you know, the rods mechanics are such that, you know, if you hold it at a certain angle, you blow up your rod, and I've done that more than one time, so after the first time, it's pretty embarrassing, because you're acting like a total moron. But 

Emily Sander  1:47  
gotcha, yeah, I have been fishing exactly two times, and they have both been embarrassing experiences. So the first one, I like, flung the rod, or whatever, backward, and I like, flung it out and I saw something on and I was like, that's weird. I like, reeled it in, and I caught someone's glove, like, someone's glove behind me. I like, fish that into the river. And I was like, Oh no, that's not what's supposed to happen. I was like, I was fishing with my nephew, who's grown I was like, Oliver, like, what do I do now? And he's like, turn this way, and he's like, click with his phone. And he was like, and then put it down. And I was like, great, thanks. 

Rory Liebhart  2:19  
That's hilarious. 

Emily Sander  2:21  
Yeah, the second time I went fishing, I was like, Okay, no more fishing after that. But I was like, no, no, I'm gonna go fishing again. I like, flung it back, and I flung the thing out. And I was like, I don't, I don't see the line. Like, where, like, where does that go? And sometimes you can't see it. I was like, Okay, I'm like, casting it out, making sure, like, maybe I wiggle it around. Where can I see it? I was like, there's nothing out there. And then I feel this excruciating pain in the back of my arm, and then I feel blood running down my arm, and I had, like, stuck my back of my arm, and I was pulling on it, and, like, wiggling around, like, I was like, Oh my god. It was just like, gushing. And I was like, okay, so I had to get my friend to, like, un hook my flesh. Was it like a barbed hook too. So you, you know you had was a basic one. It was like, thank goodness, but it was gnarly dude. Fishing hooks are meant to pierce stuff, and I was waving it around anyway, like those were my two fishing excursions, and both of them were incredibly embarrassing, which is, I don't even know if I can call that fishing, but

Emily Sander  3:18  
just outside your river, like causing shenanigans, but Well, 

Rory Liebhart  3:22  
I think you need to do a third and then see what kind of stories come from that one. 

Emily Sander  3:25  
Yeah, I might need to go with someone who's skilled, like Rory.

Ed Barton  3:29  
Not much I did more when I was younger. Grew up on a lake in upstate New York, so fished off the lake and would catch

Ed Barton  3:39  
on a good day. You might catch some northern pike, but normally it would be trout and bass and rock, rock, bass and sunfish and yeah, and you just kind of catch them, throw them back and have a nice day and

Ed Barton  3:53  
release. Okay, yeah, I don't. My dad would filet them. And I was like, Yeah, screw that. That was not,

Ed Barton  4:01  
that was not my thing. I like the sport of it. Like, yeah, I actually don't even like catching it. It's like, when I go hunting and don't ever shoot at anything, I just like, kind of being out there, 

Emily Sander  4:10  
just like being outdoors, basically, 

Ed Barton  4:12  
yeah, just let me go out there and feel like I'm being productive doing something, and I'm actually not being productive doing anything. 

Rory Liebhart  4:19  
I can relate to that absolutely 

Emily Sander  4:21  
okay. Why are we talking about fishing? So Rory came across this article, and basically there's this fishing brand, Sims, 

Rory Liebhart  4:31  
yeah, 

Emily Sander  4:31  
and it's gone through different ownership at times, like grew through private equity ownership, then they went public, and then they went back to private equity, 

Rory Liebhart  4:42  
yeah. 

Emily Sander  4:42  
And then there's kind of some questions around financial transparency, and some reports of there being tensions with different retailers and stakeholders and things like that. Is that the gist of this? Rory, 

Rory Liebhart  4:55  
well, yeah, I'm, I am. I'm very much into fishing. That's.

Rory Liebhart  5:00  
Kind of my favorite saying, if you if I were to, like, put a point on 

Emily Sander  5:05  
more than lifting.

Rory Liebhart  5:07  
I do think, I do think more than deadlifting.

Rory Liebhart  5:12  
So when I, when I saw this, the article is, the title is, fly fishing brand Sims faces retail boycott after private equity takeover, it was a Bloomberg article. So naturally, I'm like, Whoa, okay, I gotta check this out. And, you know, you look at this article, and it's actually kind of written from the perspective of a small fly shop owner. So Sims, for background, really quickly, is a company that's been around since like 1980 it's a it was originally started as a family owned business that was really kind of like, when you think about fishing brands, more of like a boutique, kind of like more expensive, higher craftsmanship, you know, really specialized

Rory Liebhart  5:57  
producer of hard goods like waiters and waiting jackets and other equipment. So supporting fishing, and not just fly fishing, but just fishing in general.

Rory Liebhart  6:07  
And so of course, I was like fishing and private equity together. What is this going to be all about? And so, yeah, read the article is really interesting, and kind of the journey that that company's been on. But as far as

Rory Liebhart  6:19  
you know, the description of how the company's changed as it's become owned by different groups and as it's gotten larger, how it's changed its strategy. How does that affect its customer base? It had a little bit of all the stuff that we've talked about up to this point in terms of, you know, the life cycle of companies, kind of founder perspective versus big company perspective. So it had a little bit of everything. It was just everything. It was just salacious enough that it pulled me in to read it. 

Emily Sander  6:45  
So, so this is your jam. And Sims, 

Rory Liebhart  6:49  
yeah. 

Emily Sander  6:50  
Originally took PE money in 2017

Emily Sander  6:54  
it was, it was cast in a investments, 

Rory Liebhart  6:57  
yeah, 

Emily Sander  6:57  
okay,

Rory Liebhart  6:58  
 yep, 

Emily Sander  6:58  
okay. 

Rory Liebhart  6:59  
And that was the first time I took outside money, and then the second time, interestingly, it was in 2022 so

Rory Liebhart  7:07  
during covid, I know I experienced this, but like during covid, a lot of folks gravitated towards outdoor activities more than maybe other times in recent history, because, like, you really couldn't do other stuff. You had to go do stuff that was you could do by yourself, or, you know, you couldn't be out in big crowds. So, like, a lot of these brands just sort of exploded, right? Like, I got into mountain biking, for example. And so so did a lot of other people, because you're six feet apart from everybody, yeah. And so all these brands experiences crazy growth. And everybody thought this was going to be the new normal, right? And so Sims similarly experienced that. I think their their sales bumps to like 110

Rory Liebhart  7:51  
million or something like that. And I think their valuation at the time was like 190 2 million. And so they were acquired. But then, of course, after covid, things renormalized. So, you know, that level of growth was not sustained. And then, of course, that means, okay, what do we do with this company to eke out a profit after we paid up almost, you know, 200 million for things like that. But, yeah, so it's, it's changed. It's, it's, you know, kind of go to market strategy. It's changed its supply chain strategy, done a lot of the things that we talked about, about operating your way into a profit or and maybe sort of alienating some people along the way to get things optimized. So it was an interesting article that kind of talked about some of the aspects of like how being owned by private equity can kind of change the complexion of a brand, or, you know, how being an industry that grows, and then contracts can affect how businesses are run.

Emily Sander  8:48  
And then, so you mentioned in 2022 they were sold to VISTA outdoor, which was public, 

Rory Liebhart  8:53  
yeah. 

Emily Sander  8:54  
And okay, sort of that was for the 200 million, 

Rory Liebhart  8:57  
yeah, 92 and you know, it was actually, this is yet another the topics that we've talked about, which is roll up strategies. So that that entity had a roll up strategy. And along with Sims this, this part of that portfolio was like fox racing, so people know about, like the motorcycle and also mountain biking brand, and so you, like a lot of these companies, had a strategy, we're going to scoop up outdoor brands, optimize them, engineer them, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And yeah, so Sims was part of that kind of roll up strategy.

Emily Sander  9:34  
Okay, so what makes one decide to go public is that just it's one of many options. It's the sexy option. We're forced into it all of the above 

Ed Barton  9:46  
All of the above. The the biggest, the biggest advantage to going public

Ed Barton  9:51  
is if you have a successful IPO, and sometimes a lot of companies will go through the I'm going to do a offering steps to essentially throw up the well, if you don't want us to, you could come by us now. So there's a long process to going public with, with filings, with the SEC and other things that, yeah, kind of like let folks know that the investor group that owns that company is ready to get liquid. And so a lot of times, you'll see companies plan to go public, to never go public. And there's two reasons why. One is the market shifts on them, and they they're just found there's not enough investor interest, and that's the investment bankers are supposed to determine that. And then the second is, they get taken private. You know, the transaction happens before they go public, but the public, the public option, does really two things, one and and I was part of when I was at Lone Star Steakhouse. We essentially took the old Lone Star Steakhouse, which was a private public company, took a private somewhere, kind of situation, bought by private equity, bought by Lone Star Funds. We then split it into two companies, the Frisco Restaurant Group, which had del Frisco and Sullivan's, and then the other was Texas, Texas Land and cattle and and

Ed Barton  11:14  
and Lone Star Steakhouse. And we sent DFR G to del Frisco Restaurant Group went public again. And so it allowed it by kind of taking this segment of the of the business that had the higher margins, it was a sexier piece of the business, rolling it out public. They actually got enough money back in to pay for the whole thing, yeah. And they then had the casual dining piece, which we then basically it went away, but it basically got cannibalized. We sold off the real estate, we sold off liquor licenses and all those other good things.

Ed Barton  11:45  
But when they do go public like that, it allows for liquidity, and they get to have ops. Because a lot of times you don't go public by selling all your all of your interest, you might go public with 20%

Rory Liebhart  11:59  
 Yeah, 

Ed Barton  11:59  
and then slowly feed stuff in. But you also are getting a bunch of your investment out. Because theoretically, if you're in a private equity group, your the valuations gone up a fair bit. You bought it again. Money's made on the buy, right? So the the sell, you're, you're making money on the sell, but you may think that there's a good upside potential on this thing, and so you're gonna, you're gonna be able to continue to ride that upside potential and get the liquidity back to your limited partners. Yeah, and the second, and sometimes the private equity groups can distribute the shares to the limited partners in lieu of cash. So they basically go, let me, you know, I'm going to distribute the shares out to you. They're at the direct the basis that the that, you know, essentially, is in there, but then the they've been able to get the money back out of the fund, and the limited partner got a distribution of shares instead of cash, and they've got the option to then gotta correct, you know, sell, keep, whatever, 

Rory Liebhart  12:52  
yeah,

Ed Barton  12:53  
but the public, the public option also provides for an obvious mark to market. So for the seller, there's, you know, they they know that they're getting the highest possible valuation at in an open transaction, because they either are going to get a competitor or strategic is going to come in and go. Before you go public, I'm going to pay you more than you're going to get as public, public IPO price, 

Rory Liebhart  13:20  
yeah, 

Ed Barton  13:20  
or they go public and evaluate, and they sell 20% they keep 80% and evaluation, the IPO price is normally low relative to valuation. Generally, they go up a bit after they go public, but then they've got the ability to get the up. So you, you really do have an opportunity to maximize your value on an IPO provided that the company's ready for the public market.

Rory Liebhart  13:43  
Yeah, 

Emily Sander  13:43  
All right, okay, so that's why you might go public. And then so in 2022 SIMs was sold to VISTA outdoor. Then Sims became part of revalist, which is like this segment of VISTA products and kind of multiple brands. In January 2025 

Rory Liebhart  14:00  
Yeah, 

Emily Sander  14:01  
Private equity firm, strategic value partners, SVP bought revalist for 1.3 billion, billion and took it private. Meaning Sims is now like indirectly, yeah, owned by SVP, a private company again, 

Rory Liebhart  14:17  
yeah, exactly, yeah. So obviously that you know that 2022 deal made some good money, if it was then it was acquired for 192 million, sold for 1.3 billion. Pretty good. You know, now there's probably some other factors at play there, in terms of, like, combined size of company. It's maybe not in Apple's because I believe in 2025 it was part of like a bigger package, Sims, plus a couple of other brands. So Nevertheless, you know, must have been a pretty solid deal. So now you know this article that we were talking about specifically was came out at the end of 2025 right? So like it's coming from the perspective of people that have have seen changes since that most recent transaction.

Rory Liebhart  14:59  
And some of the factors that kind of come up about it is, like, as a small business, you know, we have stopped, you know, procuring from Sims because of things like, you know, supply chain issues, you know. So like, Sims has moved from being really catering to the small business, small fly shop, small outdoor shop owner to much more big box retailers like Bass Pro Shops and, you know, Cabela's and stuff like that, which is, I think them, those two are actually affiliated now, which is crazy. It's like a monopoly, but, but nevertheless. So, you know, here, this is another example, at least from the perspective of small business, that private equity in its hand in these businesses is like, taken away from the brand experience, taken away from the product, things like that, quality issues, things like that. But if you were to look at it from the private equity perspective, it's very much, you know, hey, this was a sub optimally run business. It wasn't aimed at the right thing. And of course, they had McKinsey come in and do some analysis the growth prospects and things like that. And it's like, I think at a certain level of scale, you're probably your best bet is to go through the big box retailers are going to reach the masses more, and you're going to have economies of scale through the supply chain and things like that. Distribution, most importantly, marketing. So yeah, I mean, I think the whole point is to say businesses change ownership dictates the businesses and how they operate in a lot of ways, and sometimes that means there's some collateral damage. Maybe you alienate a portion of your customer base, but you know, perhaps the big box of retailers that they are catering to now are very happy with since it is like flagship brand, it's like a top gnome brand. But some of these other smaller businesses that rely on more flexibility and more predictability and kind of like connection with the company year to year as they need to fluctuate their inventory, yeah, they may feel a little bit left out. They may feel a little bit left by the wayside. And so they're, they're kind of deciding, or maybe it's decided for them, like we would just want to do business with Sims anymore. 

Emily Sander  17:09  
So what alternates do they have?

Rory Liebhart  17:13  
The small businesses? Well, it's, you know, in some cases, they just have to look for other bands to carry. You know, maybe, maybe they've, if they've built their business on bringing in call it more smaller, boutique type products focus more on quality, but might be higher priced, then they're just looking for the next Sims, like Sims was in 1980 so there are a couple of other brands that were brought up in that that article. But yeah, it's if you can't supply Sims, you know, routinely, then you got to look for other alternatives to meet your demand for your customers. 

Emily Sander  17:51  
So does that open up a whole space for the next Sims to come up, Sims moving over here, up here, whatever? Does that open up a whole bunch of space, 

Rory Liebhart  18:00  
I would say. So I think there's always room in that market to to to innovate, certainly. I mean, these, these hard goods are, you know, they you might just think of like waiters and jackets. Is, you know, just clothing. But it's also technology, wearable technology, really. So like some of these new, new players out there have come up with new fabrics and technologies that are supposedly better, keep you warmer, keep you drier, that kind of stuff. So and as a small business, you might be able to like carry that for someone with more price elasticity to pay more for perceived value.

Ed Barton  18:37  
I was gonna ask if Sims you know previously was kind of a specialized, niche player that would have been kind of premium on the market. Have they premium because of the private equity ownership? Did that really? Did they go? No, we go broader market, a little bit more downscale to make our appeal larger, which then takes your most serious sports, you know, folks who are in the sport and go, Yeah, I want this, I kind of want this exclusivity. I want the more bespoke approach I want, you know, I don't want to have a Walmart type experience. And so they, they, you know, went 8x on valuation, but ended up that was because they changed basically their target market and approach, and they lost that segment. That was, you know, the top 10% of anglers that are like, yeah, that's not my that's not my jam. I need something that's exclusive, cutting edge, that's more Mom and Pop.

Rory Liebhart  19:38  
Yeah, I think that is very much the case. I have anecdotal but actual personal experience with this. I actually, I, when I take fishing trips, a lot of times I go with guides. So guides that do this for a living, day in, day out, you know? And for many, many, many years, they were all wearing Sims gear because it was the highest quality, and it was sort of a premium Brand,

Rory Liebhart  20:01  
but I've seen a lot of them now move to other brands, and I think there's a couple reasons for that. One, it's less exclusive now. I mean, it's carried at all the big box retailers and at a lesser cost. But I think also, too it is the quality aspect. So you see this with a lot of clothing brands that you might see in boutique stores, then all of a sudden you see them in, like a Ross but like, it's maybe the same brand, but it's not always the same product, and not the same product quality. So like, my guess, my hypothesis, would be that they've started sourcing materials from different places, maybe, maybe less kind of labor intensive, more machine oriented, so maybe the quality is not nearly as good. And these guides, you know, they need something that's durable and like, will get them through these harsh winters all the time. So I'm not saying that Sims has, like, gone in the toilet with quality, but I think that there's probably been some it's not the same as it was before. And so, yeah, people change. But Sims made, you know, certainly made a calculated bet to say, Let's go for a bigger slice of the pie and aim it at that. Maybe we're not charging as much, but we'll keep our costs down in the production and the logistics of it, so that we can justify the profitability. And clearly, something's Something happened between 2022 and 25 to where they could eke out some margin to justify that $1.3 billion price tag again, combining it with a couple of other brands, I think, but still, yeah, 

Emily Sander  21:27  
So basically, the PE firm did a calculus, and you said, Mackenzie, people come in and say, Okay, there's, if you look at the total addressable market, like, we've got a pretty big pie here. Like, use an ocean analogy. There's, like, lots of blue ocean here, or whatever, and but they also have to say we can either there's there's blue sky and open space, or we're going to displace the people that are there, and the amount of profit we're going to get from that exercise is going to offset the profit We lose from these exclusive, premium, high brand customers. Yeah, so they kind of made that bet, and it seems like for a pure profit play that was successful. Yes, 

Rory Liebhart  22:11  
Seem it would seem that way. Now, of course, now, now that it's private again, we don't have access to their financials and things like that, but that is that would be presumably the case. Now, what a lot of companies do is, is, you know, they have what the Sims brand might be now, which is like, more aimed at the masses and things like that. But then they these same, these same big brands maintain another label that is more the boutique I can think of, you know, a few, a few under, like the Louis Vuitton sort of umbrella, where it's like, you have the ultra, ultra exclusive stuff and then you have the attainable stuff. But like, yes, the parent company owns these two different brands, but you have one in one pond and the other and the other. So not cannibalizing each other, per se, with their own they're addressing two different parts of the market. But as far as I know, Sims does not have like a secondary brand now that's aimed specifically at the exclusive sort of premium market. It's it's just, they just moved into the bigger, broader mass market. 

Emily Sander  23:10  
Was the fact that Sims was part of that revelation branch, like they were combined with a whole bunch of different brands. Did that make any difference to the capital they had associated with it, or anything like that. Was it grouped together in that sense, or like they were just kind of in this cohort, and then you could spin them off individually within that, 

Rory Liebhart  23:30  
Yeah, it was mostly a cohort of, like, we want well known outdoor brands in this portfolio, you know. And so aside from that, I can't imagine there was a ton of, like, underlying supply chain, you know, kind of efficiencies, or other, really, quite honestly, any other operational efficiency that I think they kind of just the thesis was, hey, outdoors is hot coming out of covid. We want to buy now. And, you know, we expect that the growth will continue, and it certainly hasn't continued at that same clip. 

Rory Liebhart  24:02  
But I think, you know, that was the original reasons. Just like, just buy a bunch of brands that are in the space that's a hot sector right now. 

Emily Sander  24:12  
Yeah, I was just curious if they did the same exercise as it did with Sims for all the other 

Rory Liebhart  24:18  
maybe. I haven't, you know, it's a good question. I haven't like, yeah, haven't I haven't looked at, like, how how fox racing is done, per se, or things like that, which was one of the others that was in that bucket. 

Emily Sander  24:28  
Whenever you say fox racing, I think of fox hunting for some reason. So I picture like, red jackets and like horns.

Emily Sander  24:36  
Yeah, hold on. No, that's outdoors as well, but not what we're talking about. Got it? And so you mentioned that, like, we don't know the financial results now, because they went private. So the SEC regulations and all the transparency and documentation goes away, goes into kind of black hole

Rory Liebhart  24:54  
yeah, only for the board of directors, for those companies to see 

Ed Barton  24:58  
Until it comes time to monetize.

Unknown Speaker  25:00  
Lives again, and then they go out to market, and that will happen. It ends up in pitch book, and you can figure it out,

Rory Liebhart  25:06  
exactly right. Exactly right, 

Rory Liebhart  25:08  
by the way, pitch book is not a sponsor in this podcast, 

Emily Sander  25:11  
Although it could be, if anyone

Rory Liebhart  25:14  
reach out to our people. Pitch book 

Emily Sander  25:16  
people, talk to your people. 

Rory Liebhart  25:18  
Yes. 

Emily Sander  25:18  
Do you think that the backlash from those loyal customers who wanted the premium brand. Do you think that has any say on what happens now, now that they're back to being private?

Rory Liebhart  25:29  
No, 

Emily Sander  25:29  
if you're shaking your heads, 

Rory Liebhart  25:30  
no, I'd say, I don't think so personally, but 

Ed Barton  25:33  
yeah, I was gonna say, I think the the decision is, is been made, that it's gonna be a broader base, a broader appeal brand. And I think you hit it Emily earlier, creates an opportunity for somebody else to kind of fill that super premium niche. And I think about things, you know, I'm not a fishing guy, I'm a car guy. So I think about, you know, if I look at 40 years ago, Mercedes Benz, which is my, my brand, I've got 14 of them. The the Mercedes Benz is were on par with Rolls Royce and a 1980 Mercedes Benz, 454, 50 SL or 450, s4, 50 and a 6.9 was more than a than a Rolls Royce, it cost more. And then Mercedes made a decision to essentially broaden the appeal of their brand. And so you they went from like cars that in the equivalent of today, the one I've got two, escla, I've got 4s class Mercedes, five of them. But the ones that I've got were like the equivalent of today's in today's dollars, would be almost $200,000

Ed Barton  26:47  
and now you could go out, if you go buy a new S class Mercedes, it's, it's about 141 50, and again, still a lot of money. But that was the kind of the normal Mercedes you had the little ones that you see running around as taxi cabs. They were the equivalent of, like, $70,000 today, but they lasted forever now, and Mercedes made a decision, basically in the 1990s and the 1990s beginning of 2000s that they said, We're going to move down, we're going to broaden our appeal and move downstream. So they bought Chrysler to try and figure out how to make cars cheaper. And then they blew out all their stuff so you could buy a new Mercedes now for under $50,000

Ed Barton  27:29  
where, you know, 30 years ago, you couldn't touch a new Mercedes for under $50,000 in that in like 1995 money, it was still over $50,000 so it's they, and I think Sims has done, you know, the the decision is largely the same, which is, how do we get more value to our shareholders? So it's, you know, and you see the same thing, like Volkswagen went and bought Lamborghini and Audi and and Bentley, and so they, you know, they go upscale. But it's, you go get a Bentley, and you get a key for a Bentley, and it's the same as a key for your Volkswagen, yes. And the and the parts are going to enter a bunch of parts that are changed, like, you know, it's Yeah. And folks who are real car people go, yeah, that's not what I want. So they end up go buying these McLarens, which are kind of custom built, and they cost a million dollars. But when you're spending 300 grand for a car, 500 grand for a car, you don't mind spending another 700 grand and getting 100 grand and getting one that's, you know, bespoke. And I think it creates an opportunity for someone to come in behind Sims, as they've shifted their focus, to take that super premium, super quality, niche, super angler, you know, the guides that Roy was talking about, the folks who are kind of really into this, and fill that niche, and then the cycle will turn

Rory Liebhart  28:42  
absolutely 

Emily Sander  28:42  
when someone goes, I have four more six, no, five.

Emily Sander  28:51  
That indicates to me you might have too many cars. Ed,

Ed Barton  28:55  
problem,

Emily Sander  28:57  
2 4 6, 

Rory Liebhart  28:58  
14,

Emily Sander  29:00  
yeah, 14

Emily Sander  29:03  
got it. So you kind of mentioned, like, we'll eventually find out how Sims is performing, because they'll need to raise capital again, or they don't want to monetize something, and, you know, pitch book, data, etc, etc. So the chickens will come home to roost at some point here, and we'll be able to see how this experiment went. What, first of all, what's the timeline on that? Predictions for like, when, you know,

Rory Liebhart  29:28  
let's see that transaction happened to 2025 I'm gonna say somewhere between 2030 and 2032

Emily Sander  29:35  
okay,

Rory Liebhart  29:37  
following that five to seven year time horizon that typically these deals that 

Emily Sander  29:41  
what are, what are your guys's predictions on what the result will be?

Rory Liebhart  29:46  
Hmm, I think I don't know that they'll get a eight bit, you know, 8x or,
I guess, upon the sale, but I do think it'll be profitable. I feel like private equity always finds a way to engineer profitability. So, you know, certainly expect that there's a lot of debt on the books for this one. So, you know, assuming that,
you know, they were able to sort of utilize the effects of the leverage without going underwater, breaking covenants. And I think, like, you know, it'll be good, it'll be a good return on equity, though, for sure.

Emily Sander  30:22  
Ed, predictions, 

Ed Barton  30:41 
um, I think it's going to follow the kind of follow the classic path of this, take private transaction is going to not work out. Well, I think the first one, I think the first one did, did fine. It did really well. I think this one's not going to work out well, because we're and mentioned it. Some of the, some of the underlying conditions that drove valuation three years ago, four years ago, are shifting. And, you know the and I think the other part is, once you get walk off the hill on, kind of being a super premium brand, and you lose and you you want to go to a broad base, you that broad base had better be growing. Otherwise you're going to lose your net, you're going to lose pricing, pricing power, you're going to lose exclusivity. And I actually think what's going to happen is this is going to be a, this is going to be a, we're lucky. We got out of it at a reasonable valuation when it comes time. And it wouldn't surprise me if somebody who's listening to this podcast now doesn't do a kind of startup on a super premium side, and then position about 10 years from now to be able to take advantage of the fact that, you know, one of the premier players left that, left that niche open because they wanted to get too big. And by getting too big, they actually, they actually will have destroyed the value that they had that they got them to this point they're going to cycle back down into in a mediocrity. 

Rory Liebhart  31:55  
Yeah,

Emily Sander  31:56  
yeah, you're saying in like 10 years the hardcore fishermen will be wearing, like, leap heart waiters

Rory Liebhart  32:05 
made out of, like, you know, space aged materials and AI, sort of, like controlled inner climate fabric and whatever, yeah, for sure, 

Ed Barton  32:17  
with the glasses, they'll let You see into the water to see the fish, 

Rory Liebhart  32:20
you won't even have to go fishing. It's like all virtual reality. So, like, you won't have to leave your room. You'll just be in your waders, but you'll have all the success from 

Emily Sander  32:26  
Yeah, it's like, no longer a wearable. It just like wears you. Yeah, okay, okay, good predictions. All right. Let's do a little outro questions here, just for fun.

Emily Sander  32:34  
If you could fish anywhere in the world tomorrow, where would it be? 

Rory Liebhart  32:47  
Oh, I'm gonna go. I'm just gonna say Chile for king salmon 

Emily Sander  32:54  
with the accent, nice, not chilly, Chile. 

Rory Liebhart  32:57  
Yeah, yeah. 

Emily Sander  32:58 
Okay. Ed, just standing outdoors. Where would you like to stand outdoors? 

Ed Barton  33:01  
I actually would probably like to go deep sea fishing where it's warm, like in the Caribbean, or off the coast of Florida, and go for some big fish, or off of Hawaii, some place, or in the pollinator in Polynesia, somewhere, just a place that's exotic and different, and on the water, I actually don't want to stand on the land and cast. I want to, I want to go fight some big shit. Big fish.

Emily Sander  33:31  
Nice. Okay, go get your Moby Dick there. Barton. Okay.

Emily Sander  33:36  
Luck or skill. What matters most in fishing?

Rory Liebhart  33:39  
Skill, for sure, 

Ed Barton  33:41  
skill, skill.

Emily Sander  33:43  
Last question, best fishing movie, mine is a river runs through it with a young Brad Pitt, fly fishing in Montana. Great movie, great movie and great fishing scenes,

Rory Liebhart  33:56  
I would agree. Brad Pitt, Tom scarrett, some good, good. This is a classic. Yeah, 

Emily Sander  34:04  
yes. Robert Redford narrates it. It's like, it's got some, yeah, it looks, 

Ed Barton  34:13  
I'm gonna go with perfect storm,

Emily Sander  34:17  
where the boat capsizes in the big wave 

Ed Barton  34:19  
everybody dies, yeah,

Rory Liebhart  34:13  
yeah.

Ed Barton  34:26  
I'm like, when you ask that question, I'm trying to think of, like, what, what other fishing movies are out there? And I'm like, There's got to be one with, like, a you know, Eddie Murphy, or Tom Hanks or something. That's just some common slaps Vicky. But you know, I'm, I'm a deep thinker, and so I'm guessing that, you know, a perfect storm is going to be the fishing, because that had the whole like, lobsterman mentality, and the and takes you to the salt of the earth, of of New England, the New England fishing environment. I mean, I think that's a, that's a that's a great movie, and it's important. It tells an important tale about the dangers of fishing.

Emily Sander  35:10  
Oh my gosh. 

Rory Liebhart  35:14  
Remember that as I go off in my fishing trip this weekend? 

Emily Sander  35:17 
Yeah, yeah.
That's kind of like going on an airplane and watching the movie Air Force One going fishing and watching the perfect storm. 

Rory Liebhart  35:27  
Yes, yeah.

Emily Sander  35:29 
Quick fun fact about that movie, George Clooney. So everyone else in that movie had accents, like New England accents, like really rat, like Boston, or whatever, accents, and they screen tested him with accent. They're like, No, just speak normally. But they wanted George Clooney in the movie, and he couldn't like, he couldn't like, embody the character the way he wanted to, either. So they just let him do his normal accent. But he's still in that movie. 

Rory Liebhart  35:52 
That's when you know you arrived. You don't have to, like, adhere to the rest of the cast recording. 

Emily Sander  35:56  
He was playing a true person too, like, not an accident. So his family probably like, okay, but they're probably like, George Clooney is playing you bro, so you're, you know, yeah, could do worse. All right, yeah,

Emily Sander  36:10  
awesome. All right, with, with big waves on, on your mind, we will let our listeners go. But thanks, Rory, thank you. Em, thanks. Ed, thanks em, we'll catch you next time.