Originally posted by Ratmagiclady Leica's been in a bit of trouble for a while, and the Four-Thirds affiliation hasn't served them very well. I could see some new affiliations under the Hoya company: Pentax does SLRs, [...] with Leica as the premium brand of all of em
Just a few words about Leica here.
Leica (from
Leitz
Camera) is a big name compared to the current, actual, comany, called
Leica Camera AG. There are many other Leica companies around now which I am not talking about here. So, in the following, I use Leica as a synonym to Leica Camera AG.
Leica has a turnover of about 100 million € only and about 1000 employees. It used to be somewhat larger. What is interesting however, is who owns Leica:
Dr. Andreas Kaufmann (54). He made some money in Stuttgart (he started his career as a school teacher, later co-founded some companies and became member of Leica's supervisory board). Kaufmann is Leica enthusiast, we would say, Leicaxian
With the help of his brothers (together, they are SOCRATES Privatstiftung in Vienna, Austria), he founded ACM Projektentwicklung GmbH in Salzburg, Austria. ACM then bought all Leica stock (2006 to 2007) and Andreas Kaufmann is now 96% owner of Leica.
Initially, he tried the "American way of management" and hired Steven K. Lee (former position: Best Buy Co., Inc. Minnesota) as CEO. This failed because too much value was destroyed. Now, he acts himself as Leica's CEO and opts for longer-term strategies and a withdrawel from the stock market (and its short-term consequences). He now wants to succeed with both, agile management immediately reacting to market forces, and long-term quality creation "made in Germany" paired with engineering excellence this region in Germany is famous for.
Those guys feel quite strong now and have a vision. Their Leica S shows it. Looking at their range of products (high end compact with Panasonic, rangefinders, Leica S, announced full frame Leica-R) and their size (they are tiny compared to Pentax) I can only say that their real capital must be human resources.
Given all this background, I have a hard time to see how a camera maker with an agile management full of ideas could cooperate with a Japanese camera maker who has severe problems to listen. On the other hand, Panasonic (Matsushita) is Japanese, too.