Hobbico files for bankruptcy

[chips]

Hobbico has filed for bankruptcy. From looking at a couple other forums, Hobbico owes lots of $$ to various creditors, and is being sued for patent infringement. Hobbico is the owner of Tower Hobbies, Great Planes, Revell/Revell of Germany, and Estes. The product lines they distribute includes: Futaba; Duratrax; Onyx (batteries); Aquacraft; Tactic; and others. Futaba is one of the more than 200 companies that Hobbico owes money to.

A few links to various Hobbico reports:
Hobbico bankruptcy
BigSquidRC.com posted this

I hope that Hobbico's situation doesn't affect the availability of the Revell sub kits; or the other parts that Hobbico distributes from other manufacturers.

[SubtechRC]

I've been following a few of the model airplane forums. There are a lot of folks that believe their segment of the R/C hobby may be headed back to the cottage industry type situation of the mid-1970s. The next few years should be very interesting.

Tower hobbies has $53 million in assets, but over $150 million in debt. There are a few other large hobby manufacturers that are in deep trouble, too, including JR.

[sam reichart]

this does not bode well for the future. lots of big name companies on that list.

someone once told me, "how do you make a million dollars in the hobby business?"

the answer, "Start with two million."

[tommydeen]

Wow. Yha gota wonder what's going there....some of the wording is familiar to me like " thousands of dollars vanished"
And this one "Hobbico is under federal investigation, accused of mismanaging their employees' stock."
Ahhh they must be taking lessons from the teamsters in Chicago