NYT:

The owner of the Freedom Group, the gun manufacturer whose Bushmaster rifle was used in a deadly Connecticut school shooting nearly a year ago, is planning to give other investors in the company a way to cash out as an attempt to sell it has stalled.

Freedom’s parent, the investment firm Cerberus Capital Management, plans to unveil the proposal on Monday, a person briefed on the matter said on Sunday.

The shares of other gun manufacturers have recovered from a brief but steep dip following the shooting last year, prompted by fears of tougher gun laws that failed to clear Congress. Shares in Smith & Wesson have risen 28 percent since then, while those in Sturm, Ruger & Company have climbed 50 percent …

But Cerberus and its advisers at the investment bank Lazard have struggled with an auction process that has not yielded any acceptable bids so far, this person said. A number of potential buyers, ranging from leveraged buyout firms to fellow gun makers, have expressed interest. These would-be bidders ran into trouble for different reasons, including an inability to secure adequate financing.

[ … ]

Let investors in its funds — including those eager to wash their hands of the firearm industry — sell their holdings. Among the most vocal of these have been public pension funds like the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or Calstrs, and New York State’s comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli.

Concerning the value of gun stocks, Breitbart notes:

While the White House and Senate Democrats hammered guns and gun rights during 2013, investors put their money into gun company stocks and garnered “incredible returns.”

According to The Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch, “those who bought [stock in] Smith & Wesson in the aftermath of [the heinous crime at Sandy Hook Elementary] have made profits of more than 60 percent.”

Those who bought Sturm, Ruger & Co. stock have made profits of “nearly 80 percent.”

These investments beat “the overall stock market by more than two-to-one.”

As Breitbart News reported on December 6th, these gains have not been lost on mutual fund companies like Vanguard and Blackrock. They too have broadened their investments in various firearm companies over the last year, as have financial firms like Capital Research and Management.

Even Mother Jones acknowledges in a headline that “The Producer of Bushmaster Assault Rifles Has Made a Killing Since Newtown.”

This is just rich.  Guns are still the hottest commodity in America.  At a time when cities across America are staring bankruptcy in the face due to the ridiculous deals they cut with the unions, the progressive California State Teachers’ Retirement System and the state of New York have a chance to put their money where their mouth is.

Will you divest yourselves of the best money making stocks you own because they make those evil guns?  Here’s your chance.

Pressconnects.com:

Not too long ago the Internet was filled with warnings that some mysterious company, supposedly owned by ultra-liberal businessman George Soros, was buying major firearms manufacturers with the idea that they would be closed down.

It wasn’t true, although I’ve spent months countering versions of the story sent to me. But one big company — investment group Cerebus — was indeed buying up gun companies under its Freedom Group name.

It already owned Remington when the story broke, then added Marlin and H&R/New England Firearms; then Bushmaster and DPMS and Dakota Arms. A lot of the manufacturing for all of them has been swept from their former homes and is now being done at the Remington plant in Ilion.

You can imagine the paranoia returning since Reuters News Service broke a report this week that Alliant Techsystems was in the final stages of acquiring Bushnell Outdoor Products from investment group MidOcean Partners.

ATK is known for making rockets, tank and artillery ammunition and has the contract for small arms ammo for the armed forces. It also owns the nation’s largest ammo maker, Federal Cartridge, and recently purchased Savage/Stevens Arms. It already owned Alliant Powder, CCI, RCBS, Speer, Weaver Optics, and Champion Targets.

Acquisition of the Bushnell brand portfolio would give ATK an instant market presence with Bushnell, Butler Creek, Final Approach, Hoppe’s, Millett, Night Optics, Primos Hunting, Simmons, Tasco, Stoney Point and Uncle Mikes brands.

According to Jim Shepherd’s Outdoor Wire, the acquisition would put ATK on equal or slightly higher footing than Cerebus/Freedom Group.

Paranoia be damned, having so many ordnance manufacturers under stable regimes good news.

My feelings concerning Remington and the plant in Ilion (and their commitment to the state of New York) are well known.  As for Cerebus / The Freedom Group, I have monitored from a distance and tried to let the free market dictate the outcome.

But according to the article, as for the companies they bought, “A lot of the manufacturing for all of them has been swept from their former homes and is now being done at the Remington plant in Ilion.”

If this is true, then Freedom Group essentially bought out the competition rather than acquiring it, making it better and letting it contribute to the community.  They closed down manufacturing and put it all in Ilion.

Good grief.  They centralized and conglomerated rather than managed, and now it’s all concentrated in a totalitarian state.  Nothing good came from it, and it won’t end well for anyone involved.  How sad.

And my opinions concerning Remington haven’t changed.  If anything, they have become stronger.