I was rubbing my eyes at their - claimed by them, doubted by the investors - earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization with all one-off positive and negative effects not taken into account (adjusted EBITDA) of only US-$ 60.0-$65.0 million
. They are hardly a large or even medium-size business then, more a cottage industry. Somehow (without ever giving too much thought to it), I had expected them to push a much more substantial operative result wave (even if large parts of that are subsequently eaten by interest payments).
So it's not so much whether anybody could afford Gibson as it is the question who might be at all interested. Not really something that wets a financial investor's appetite - they would be underneath the radar of many private equity companies. They will either have to find a very rich investment banker who "
always wanted to own a guitar company" or someone from the instrument industry will have to play the white knight and see the Gibson brand as something to enhance his portfolio with.