On Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:42:13 -0700, Chuck Gould
wrote:

Brunswick has owned Albermarle for quite while now. Basically, they
are built by the same group that makes Hatteras. Many of the upper
tier
trademarks built by Brunswick are pretty darn good boats. Sometimes
people make the mistake of looking at the cheapest entry level product
a corporation builds and then presuming that no matter what point they
buy into the product line or what trademark they get the quality will
be no better than the least expensive, entry level "leader" item the
corporation builds.

I think that there's always a concern when a large corporation buys
into a smaller company that quality will suffer. The business
rationale for the merger is almost always cost reduction. If those
cost saves are not realized in an intelligent way, and if the
corporate culture of the smaller firm is seriously disrupted, then
there is no guarantee that high quality will continue. On the other
hand if the new corporate parent invests in better production methods
that are also more efficient, that could turn out to improve overall
quality. You just have to wait and see.