Goings-on at Hornby?

[Softscience]

I hope this is just an ugly rumor, but on An otheR forum someplaCe, a fellow mentioned that Hornby is selling Airfix molds to Revell as they're financially on shaky ground.

I haven't heard of this anyplace else. I thought sales of the new Airfix kits were doing well.

I know the internet and fact often don't go hand in hand, but this made me raise an eyebrow, so I thought I'd ask people who may actually know.

[PaulBradley]

Some stupid rumour, I imagine..

[AndrewR]

As far as I was aware (from the financial press), Hornby had renegotiated their finance with Barclays and were on better ground.
Sales of the new Typhoon kit have been doing very well.

There was something about licencing their 1/48 Jaguar GR.1 kit to Revell that I saw as an unsubstantiated rumour on another websiten

As they seem to be building a range of state of the art 1/48 kits, it might be one they don't want to reissue.

[Eric Mc]

A couple of kits have appeared in both Airfix and Revell boxes -

the Fairy Fulmar
the DC-3/C-47

[TomW]

Very true Eric, though neither of those were Airfix tools (Fulmar was vista and DC-3 was Italeri) as far as I know. I too had heard rumblings of poor finances at Hornby though I believe that was the model railroad side of the business.

Regards

Tom

[Eric Mc]

The other example I meant to mention was the Vampire FB5 - which was originally Heller, of course.

[splash]

They have been selling off a lot of kits on their website?

Regards Splash

[Avalon]

Heller have a 1/48 JAGUAR GR.1\GR.3 in their current kits, it could well be that Revell is dealing with Heller rather than Hornby depending on what arrangements Heller and Hornby have. If Airfix don't intend to re-issue the 1/48 Jag soon , then poly bagging them to another company is a way of getting the tools to generate money with little risk. Eduard have previously boxed the Airfix 1/48 Lightning and Spitfires, (in these cases, as opposed to oft quoted expression, an Eduard Spitfire and Lightning DID make money for Airfix!)

The website sale is to sell off stock which isn't being moved to the new warehouse facility which is being run by a contracted company. Storage of stock has to be paid for, so I imagine anything that is suspected of not shifting quick enough to make an economic return is being sold off rather than moved. So extending the logic, if you want any of the kits being sold off, then buy them now because they are unlikely to be released again soon...

[bassman]

Revell is of course well known for buying in kits from other brands. Remember the Heinkel 111 from Hasegawa Revell sold a few years back. The price of this kit was very low compared to the Hasegawa version. The Hasegawa was more then double the price overhere. So maybe Hornby is following the same route at the moment.

[jezbrook]

The 1:48 Jaguar was not sold to Hornby but retained by Heller. So you are highly unlikely to see it again in an Airfix box. It is probably Heller who is trying to raise some much needed money by getting Revell to sell it?

jezbrook

[Avalon]

Hornby/Airfix have no involvement in this. It is a Heller deal, they currently have the 1/48 Jaguar in their catalogue. The tooling has not been sold to Revell.