Leica employees & Stephen K Lee

It doesn't exactly paint a rosy picture of Leica's current situation ... I hope the three new cameras they've just released reverse the trend or the M9 may become an orphan at a very young age!

I find it a little disturbing to be honest! :/
 
This came up on the Leica forum about ten days back. You got to hope that the slew of new products they've just introduced will inject some much-needed cash into the company. No doubt there's a lot of positive buzz now around the brand, which in itself, will help.

Jim B.
 
I suppose that is why Lee is able to state on his CV that he was the boss until this Summer. Oh well, onwards with crossed fingers.
 
Sorry to read this, I hope it will get better soon.

Just checked the numbers, but I did not win the lottery this month.

I'll buy that M9 as soon as I can without selling all my lenses, I'd love to shoot one!
 
The largest stock holder pushed the old CEO out and now has to pay. The company is now trying to balance the problem on the backs of the employees who did nothing to cause the problem but be loyal to the company and work hard to make the magic that is Leica happen.

I think the board should work for free for the next two years. Employess if they take a decrease in pay should be offered stock double the amount of their decrease for free.

B2 (;->
 
It took a heavy investment to get the current three cameras to market. It's the end of the 4th quarter and Leica has chosen a "hail mary" pass. :)
 
We dont know how much the "unspecified sum." It could be a small deferred amount, with an attempt to blame Lee for the company's poor financial management. Company's in trouble always blame someone else.
 
JSU said:
In 2007 and 2008 more than 25,000 daily newspaper employees in the USA had their jobs closed. I suspect most of them would have gladly taken a cut in pay rather than a total loss of pay.

Since the beginning of 2008 a significant number of newspaper employees in the USA have taken pay cuts, forced furloughs or both.

Leica AG isn't the only company enduring hard times. My hat is off to them for making an effort to persevere and succeed.
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I agree completely.
 
May just be coincidence, but I work in the US for a German company, and they're cutting/freezing in spite of the fact that our particular division (value branded consumer products) is thriving in the downturn .

Seems to be a real liquidity issue, a real drive to reduce working capital; could be a German thing with credit/interest rates.
 
JSU said:
Since the beginning of 2008 a significant number of newspaper employees in the USA have taken pay cuts, forced furloughs or both.
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Not just newspapers. I had to take six mandatory lay-off days this FY and I'm in Natural Resource management.

Jim B.
 
Leica employees having to take pay cuts is not unusual in today's world economy. Most employees have little to say in how a company is run and therefore not much to do with how it got in the shape it is in. They do suffer the consequences of how a company is run by having to take pay cuts or job losses. I see darn few executives willing to take pay cuts and/or refusing golden parachutes when they are let go.

Bob
 
Nikon Bob said:
I see darn few executives willing to take pay cuts and/or refusing golden parachutes when they are let go.

Bob
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If anything, the past 10 years have shown that execs will gut the company, plunder pension plans, and fire workers to pump up their golden handshakes. Some leave filthy rich.

At Disneyland Corp, for example, one exec got fired and left with a reported $100 Million in severance pay. Unemployed with $100 Million he set up a movie studio that is thriving today. Gut & plunder is the Exc mantra.

The employees and stockholders take it in the shorts.
 
Even here in 'Socialist' Scandinavia, deeply unionised and egalitarian, wage cuts are now common. For the ordinary employee, that is. Management often goes free. This will hit 'the economy' in the end. I would never have made a major investment in buying my home, summer house or all the cars I have owned up through the years if I could not trust that my salary was something I could trust would come in every month, uncut. It seems to me that quite many employers use this crisis for all that it is worth to make a better profit. By this they make the crisis even worse. Only the fear of wage cuts prevents people from making major investments.
 
bean_counter said:
Seems to be a real liquidity issue a real drive to reduce working capital; could be a German thing with credit/interest rates.
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They generally fire employees to increase working capital. The fewer workers they have the more it frees up cash for the golden handshakes;-l
 
Then its the Illuminati and 'the new order' to come. The peasants( us) have been accumilating too much power from a financial free for all and must be brought down a few pegs to learn who our 'Masters' really are...... So I'm told !
 
parsec1 said:
Then its the Illuminati and 'the new order' to come. The peasants( us) have been accumilating too much power from a financial free for all and must be brought down a few pegs to learn who our 'Masters' really are...... So I'm told !
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Whoever told you must be making the rounds of many countries and continents as I believe someone told me the exact same thing not too long ago.

Bob
 
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