Guitar Center Sells Out for $1.9 Billion June 28
It was announced yesterday that Guitar Center, which went public in 1997, is returning to private hands. Bain Capital Partners LLC, will reportedly pay $1.9 billion for the largest music store chain in our industry.
How this will change GC will be interesting. There seem to be some people of the opinion that this will be a good thing for their retail locations since, as a public company, the mighty dollar was the most important thing. News flash: To a company with “Capital Partners” in its name, the bottom line will be more important than ever.
It’s been a while since the GC culture revolved around customer service (ever stand in the middle of a GC on a Saturday and see how long it takes for a salesperson to talk to you?) or cool gear (how many red, black and sunburst Strats can you hang on a wall?). Well see if that changes. It will also be interesting to see how this affects the other industry names that they own. There are already rumors that the Music and Arts stores will be sold off. We’ll see what happens with Musicians Friend and Harmony Central (yep, GC owns them, too!).
Here’s some more info.