ericn
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Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on May 28, 2023 13:38:05 GMT -6
This marks the first time that it's gone so far as to hire a wall street broker to get this done. All the rumours have been surrounding AVID because of the speculation investors have long tried it on to see what can be made of AVID's worth [to themselves]. The rumours originate from AVID!
The speculation investors no longer need the tech investors to seek a deal, apparently.
I hear you, and I've listened as well but this looks very very different.
The problem I see is that no one still wants their technology or see value in their IP. Too many competitors have entered the market and no one is facing collapse if AVID no longer is around. It would be another thing if AVID were intrinsic to the continuation of media and production corporations and industry.
No one will miss a beat if AVID dismantles for the sake of sale proceeds,imo.
only those studios invested in the dead on arrival in the programming world HDX hardware. No developer wanted to code dsp plugins for a new chip after going native except for UAD who stuck to their UAD2 SHARCS as an expensive dongle. Avid should’ve went fully native with good interfaces right away to compete with Lynx and Apogee and crush the lofi likes of RME and Focusrite. As soon as you move out of the world of mainstream pop music you find Native systems and the inherent latency is a no go. Guys in large scale scoring, Classical, Broadcast all the different parts of the High End post are all wondering what they will do. AVID’s biggest issue has always been chasing growth vs profit. They never understood chasing the low end buisness was expensive. They also never understood that the dealer and general IT attitude of video customers was very different from audio. Video has always excepted and values the turnkey solution as well as service contracts. Audio guys have always been more “ go it alone “ or “ I know a guy”. AVID has many assets that may be of value to a buyer, the problem is probably going to be that a buyer who see’s value in any particular group of its parts is probably not going to find the value in the entire intergrated package. I can see Sony thinking they would be perfect but as an audio guy I fear their typical long term approach to pro Audio, but honestly as a large scale video and audio producer their needs for AVID’s survival may be key. I have heard rumors that Dolby could see parts of AVID as key to ATMOS exceptance, and they may be perfect as a short term caretaker but there are so many parts they just don’t understand. In the world of post Blackmagic is talked about but they have most of the pieces in their offerings just not the industry exceptance and I doubt the $. One of the biggest problems is over the years AVID had a posture of buying everything out there and keeping a high debt load as a defensive posture against unwanted acquisition ( there was fear Sony or Panasonic would buy them ) now that debt load should factor into any suitors plans. The biggest fear of many of its niche markets is someone see’s the value in a big part and figures they can sell off the rest, but this kills the advantage of the intergration AVID has built and in many areas been key to to their market exceptance. Example let’s say Yamaha see’s value in the Audio division’s but doesn’t want to be a video company, without the intervention would audio or video post world still want AVID? |
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Post by brenta on Aug 9, 2023 15:14:13 GMT -6
Private equity firm STG is nearing a deal to acquire AVID. We’ll see if this results in any big changes for the Pro Tools business model. www.reuters.com/markets/deals/private-equity-firm-stg-nears-14-bln-deal-avid-technology-sources-2023-08-09/ From STG’s website: “We find, build, and scale mid-market software and software-enabled tech services businesses. We have tailored our team and approach specifically to these sectors. We believe we unlock the potential of innovative companies by partnering with top management teams to build customer-centric market winners. We are committed to our portfolio companies’ growth, building a sustainable foundation that brings value to existing and future stakeholders – especially end customers. We believe our well-executed record of success enables us to anticipate potential hurdles while focusing on achieving long-term results for our portfolio companies.” |
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 16,103
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Post by ericn on Aug 9, 2023 15:34:37 GMT -6
Private equity firm STG is nearing a deal to acquire AVID. We’ll see if this results in any big changes for the Pro Tools business model. www.reuters.com/markets/deals/private-equity-firm-stg-nears-14-bln-deal-avid-technology-sources-2023-08-09/ From STG’s website: “We find, build, and scale mid-market software and software-enabled tech services businesses. We have tailored our team and approach specifically to these sectors. We believe we unlock the potential of innovative companies by partnering with top management teams to build customer-centric market winners. We are committed to our portfolio companies’ growth, building a sustainable foundation that brings value to existing and future stakeholders – especially end customers. We believe our well-executed record of success enables us to anticipate potential hurdles while focusing on achieving long-term results for our portfolio companies.” So get ready for a price increase. |
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Post by Quint on Aug 9, 2023 15:49:52 GMT -6
Private equity firm STG is nearing a deal to acquire AVID. We’ll see if this results in any big changes for the Pro Tools business model. www.reuters.com/markets/deals/private-equity-firm-stg-nears-14-bln-deal-avid-technology-sources-2023-08-09/ From STG’s website: “We find, build, and scale mid-market software and software-enabled tech services businesses. We have tailored our team and approach specifically to these sectors. We believe we unlock the potential of innovative companies by partnering with top management teams to build customer-centric market winners. We are committed to our portfolio companies’ growth, building a sustainable foundation that brings value to existing and future stakeholders – especially end customers. We believe our well-executed record of success enables us to anticipate potential hurdles while focusing on achieving long-term results for our portfolio companies.” So get ready for a price increase. And bullshit. Big pieces of bullshit. Attachments:
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Post by christopher on Aug 9, 2023 18:48:37 GMT -6
I was shopping Vintage King the other day to see what PT options there are for studio if I wanted to full bore, everything package- no holding back! And I just left after looking at options feeling they really don’t care about the studio anymore. Like $12k gets you in the door with a decent start. But the real bragging rights stuff is many tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands. There’s a control surface that is $160,000. Does that include all the analog I/O you’d ever need, right? I assume so.. but I’m pretty sure I’m wrong. It appears this is just a control surface,.. basically a few iPads with motorized faders and knobs. Does it even include Protools?
So then, where is the package WITH everything I’d want and need to use it? I don’t see it listed. I have no idea how much I’d need. I guess If I had to ask, I can’t afford it.
When I see this stuff I think it’s really for installs at venues, casinos, churches, malls, etc. I think they just say meh to the studios. Makes sense I guess.. every town needs more churches and malls than they do commercial recording studios. I sort of hope, fingers crossed, new owners will make it more like how it used to be, simple clarity. But I get it, you can’t say $25k - $250k for everything when you have a client where you can get $2.5m from them without blinking
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2023 19:20:31 GMT -6
I was shopping Vintage King the other day to see what PT options there are for studio if I wanted to full bore, everything package- no holding back! And I just left after looking at options feeling they really don’t care about the studio anymore. Like $12k gets you in the door with a decent start. But the real bragging rights stuff is many tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands. There’s a control surface that is $160,000. Does that include all the analog I/O you’d ever need, right? I assume so.. but I’m pretty sure I’m wrong. It appears this is just a control surface,.. basically a few iPads with motorized faders and knobs. Does it even include Protools? So then, where is the package WITH everything I’d want and need to use it? I don’t see it listed. I have no idea how much I’d need. I guess If I had to ask, I can’t afford it. When I see this stuff I think it’s really for installs at venues, casinos, churches, malls, etc. I think they just say meh to the studios. Makes sense I guess.. every town needs more churches and malls than they do commercial recording studios. I sort of hope, fingers crossed, new owners will make it more like how it used to be, simple clarity. But I get it, you can’t say $25k - $250k for everything when you have a client where you can get $2.5m from them without blinking There may well be a package that suits you, but you'd need to specify what you want out of it. I'm assuming the control surface you saw is a tricked-out S6. It's gorgeous and I've seen people work incredibly quickly on one. There's a much less expensive S3 which is still quite powerful. But there's also a free app that runs on iPad or Android. I've used it and it's much more powerful than you might guess. You're absolutely correct in that these are control surfaces only. I/O is another set of selections. There's some pretty slick stuff from Avid (not cheap), but you can use just about any interface you want with it. I use Focusrite myself. From your wording, I think that you may have fallen into despair a bit too soon. All I can say is that there isn't--and never has been--the ideal studio for any one person or type of mixing. So you're probably not going to see it listed on VK. But Pro Tools is the hub of a lot of music studios. If you take time to figure out what you want, I'll bet you could put together a nice powerful system for a fair price. Of course it's worth waiting a little while to see how this takeover shakes out. |
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Post by Quint on Aug 9, 2023 20:16:44 GMT -6
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Post by thehightenor on Aug 10, 2023 2:08:07 GMT -6
Wow $1.4 billion!
So Avid must be a very big company (the biggest?) compared to virtually all the players in pro audio!
Yamaha bought Steinberg for $28.5M - small change it seems!
So, it's a very big wow from me .... Pro Tools must have like near on 100% of the professional audio software and hardware market.
$1.4 billion is a big number for any company - let alone in the audio world.
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Post by itzprime on Aug 10, 2023 3:42:24 GMT -6
Wow $1.4 billion! So Avid must be a very big company (the biggest?) compared to virtually all the players in pro audio! Yamaha bought Steinberg for $28.5M - small change it seems! So, it's a very big wow from me .... Pro Tools must have like near on 100% of the professional audio software and hardware market. $1.4 billion is a big number for any company - let alone in the audio world. Nah current market caps are insane. 1.4b is chump change and is counted as a small cap. Yamaha bought Steinberg in 2004. Back then the market was a lot smaller. No idea what I think of this acquisition.The practices of Avid in the last few years make me believe that not a lot will change |
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Post by kcatthedog on Aug 10, 2023 4:03:54 GMT -6
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Post by thehightenor on Aug 10, 2023 5:20:54 GMT -6
Wow $1.4 billion! So Avid must be a very big company (the biggest?) compared to virtually all the players in pro audio! Yamaha bought Steinberg for $28.5M - small change it seems! So, it's a very big wow from me .... Pro Tools must have like near on 100% of the professional audio software and hardware market. $1.4 billion is a big number for any company - let alone in the audio world. Nah current market caps are insane. 1.4b is chump change and is counted as a small cap. Yamaha bought Steinberg in 2004. Back then the market was a lot smaller. No idea what I think of this acquisition.The practices of Avid in the last few years make me believe that not a lot will change Well yes of course, "chump change" for companies outside of the music industry. .... please point me towards another company that sells pro audio equipment that has a market cap of $1.4 billion! |
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Post by Quint on Aug 10, 2023 5:45:51 GMT -6
Nah current market caps are insane. 1.4b is chump change and is counted as a small cap. Yamaha bought Steinberg in 2004. Back then the market was a lot smaller. No idea what I think of this acquisition.The practices of Avid in the last few years make me believe that not a lot will change Well yes of course, "chump change" for companies outside of the music industry. .... please point me towards another company that sells pro audio equipment that has a market cap of $1.4 billion! Just keep in mind that, if you want to make an apples to apples comparison of Avid versus everyone else, you need to take into consideration that a healthy majority of that 1.4b valuation comes from Avid's presence in the film world in ways in which most everyone else has a relatively non-existent presence. If you take that out of the equation and then just look at the circles (studio, home recording, non-film audio) in which Avid more directly competes with other pro audio companies like Yamaha, Steinberg, Focusrite, Universal Audio, Presonus, etc, the numbers become a lot more even. Hell, in terms of total revenue in a non-film context, I bet UA makes more on Apollos than Avid makes on HDX/Carbon/MTRX. I'm sure Eric could speak on this subject in a lot greater detail than I, but every time this sort of subject comes up, it always gets pointed out that the real bread and butter at Avid is the film side of things, and that music/studio sales just get to come along for the ride. |
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Post by brenta on Aug 10, 2023 8:26:16 GMT -6
Yeah I think by far most of the value of AVID is their film/video production software and hardware. Video media hasn't been devalued anywhere near as much as music has.
Who knows what STG has planned for the audio part of AVID? At least their mission statement uses words like "customer-centric" and "end-user" instead of "shareholder value." Being privately held can give them the option to think about the long-term success of the company instead of just constantly trying to beat quarterly earnings estimates. I just hope they don't continue with the over-simplistic strategy of "let's increase revenue by switching to a subscription model!"
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Post by Ward on Aug 10, 2023 8:29:47 GMT -6
Private equity firm STG is nearing a deal to acquire AVID. We’ll see if this results in any big changes for the Pro Tools business model. www.reuters.com/markets/deals/private-equity-firm-stg-nears-14-bln-deal-avid-technology-sources-2023-08-09/ From STG’s website: “We find, build, and scale mid-market software and software-enabled tech services businesses. We have tailored our team and approach specifically to these sectors. We believe we unlock the potential of innovative companies by partnering with top management teams to build customer-centric market winners. We are committed to our portfolio companies’ growth, building a sustainable foundation that brings value to existing and future stakeholders – especially end customers. We believe our well-executed record of success enables us to anticipate potential hurdles while focusing on achieving long-term results for our portfolio companies.” So get ready for a price increase. Get ready for a heavy migration to Logic and Reaper. And possibly others. |
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Post by thehightenor on Aug 10, 2023 8:32:05 GMT -6
So get ready for a price increase. Get ready for a heavy migration to Logic and Reaper. And possibly others. To Cubase Pro 12 .... if they're sensible :-) |
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Post by Ward on Aug 10, 2023 8:33:55 GMT -6
Get ready for a heavy migration to Logic and Reaper. And possibly others. To Cubase Pro 12 .... if they're sensible :-) Cubase Pro 12 for MacOS? |
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Post by kcatthedog on Aug 10, 2023 8:39:41 GMT -6
They paid cash, you’d think they’d want an immediate and significant ongoing return on that investment: glad I’m out.
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cj
Full Member
Posts: 31
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Post by cj on Aug 10, 2023 8:43:01 GMT -6
Just to provide a little context about Avid. Last year their revenues were about $417 million USD. About $261 million came from software subscriptions and about $156 million came from hardware. Unfortunately, they don't break out the revenue dollars from ProTools in their financial statements but they do show that about 290,000 people/organizations subscribe to it.
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Post by Ward on Aug 10, 2023 9:05:21 GMT -6
Just to provide a little context about Avid. Last year their revenues were about $417 million USD. About $261 million came from software subscriptions and about $156 million came from hardware. Unfortunately, they don't break out the revenue dollars from ProTools in their financial statements but they do show that about 290,000 people/organizations subscribe to it. I would have expected a lot more revenue than that. Anyhow, does anyone know the breakdown between Pro Tools and Avid Video? TIA |
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Post by jeremygillespie on Aug 10, 2023 9:12:51 GMT -6
Just to provide a little context about Avid. Last year their revenues were about $417 million USD. About $261 million came from software subscriptions and about $156 million came from hardware. Unfortunately, they don't break out the revenue dollars from ProTools in their financial statements but they do show that about 290,000 people/organizations subscribe to it. I would have expected a lot more revenue than that. Anyhow, does anyone know the breakdown between Pro Tools and Avid Video? TIA If you were to sell your company, you’d generally look at getting 7x your yearly revenue right? So with the 1.4b, seems like they did okay with that number. |
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on Aug 10, 2023 9:19:11 GMT -6
So get ready for a price increase. Get ready for a heavy migration to Logic and Reaper. And possibly others. That could be the best thing that could happen. As one of the first generation of Digi/ AVID product specialists I have been saying for years that while the lowend products certainly generate revenue the support for those customers costs you so much more than at the highend of the market. Plus institutional customers don’t have a problem buying service plans. Going private for a while and contracting could be the key to an AVID they can eventually sell off. If you get the right management they just might realize the advantage of opening up the system to other partners, I’ll say it again go look at the Partner brochure for PT5/ 24, you know back when you could run Logic or DP on The DSP and AVID endorsed the Apogee AD800. Not trying to run HDX on every PC made would be a great step forward, AVID built its reputation on stability, a base of great knowledge on how to build a system on a very limited number of machines that were tested for a fairly long period before qualification and great specific build instructions frustrated the market and limited growth but made them profitable. Oh and AVID knows how to build PC’s, what do you think all the live products are, PC’s running Windows. Don’t hold your breath for the death of subscriptions, besides the very complicated tax reasons it’s a source of stable revenue. |
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Post by thehightenor on Aug 10, 2023 9:24:11 GMT -6
To Cubase Pro 12 .... if they're sensible :-) Cubase Pro 12 for MacOS? I run Cubase Pro 12 on OSX and Windows, and to be honest I've never noticed any difference. Steinberg seem to do cross platform rather well - as do Avid ironically :-) |
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cj
Full Member
Posts: 31
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Post by cj on Aug 10, 2023 9:31:30 GMT -6
Just to provide a little context about Avid. Last year their revenues were about $417 million USD. About $261 million came from software subscriptions and about $156 million came from hardware. Unfortunately, they don't break out the revenue dollars from ProTools in their financial statements but they do show that about 290,000 people/organizations subscribe to it. I would have expected a lot more revenue than that. Anyhow, does anyone know the breakdown between Pro Tools and Avid Video? TIA
Ward this doesn't really answer your question since it doesn't include any hardware but maybe it's an interesting data point.
As of December 2022, the software subscriber breakdown was: ProTools: approx 290,000 subscribers Media Composer: approx 100,000 Silbelius: approx 90,000 Media Central/Flex: approx 25,000 Avid doesn't break out the revenues from each subscriber number so we don't know whether or not the Media Composer revenue might be worth more than the ProTools business even though Media Composer has fewer subscribers. |
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Post by Ward on Aug 10, 2023 9:42:13 GMT -6
That helps a bit, thank you cj I'm going to pause on adding any CTG stock to my portfolio . . . for now. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2023 9:43:41 GMT -6
So get ready for a price increase. Get ready for a heavy migration to Logic and Reaper. And possibly others. I dunno, I'm remaining cautiously optimistic. Pro Tools studio is a great piece of software and with a few additions that people have been asking about for years it would become a very attractive proposal. I suppose the future of Pro Tools comes down to how the new regime deals with it, fingers crossed. |
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