D&M Holdings Drops Escient and Snell Brands; Toshiba Restructures

D&M Holdings is dropping the Escient and Snell brands, while Toshiba America Consumer Products is restructuring, a sign that both companies are moving to shore up finances.

While D&M said its profitability improved in the fiscal year ended March 31, Escient was being shut down as the group’s focus shifts from developing products to “incorporating its innovative technologies” in core consumer brands like Denon, Marantz, McIntosh and Boston Acoustics. Snell suffered amid a down market in the speaker industry that made it “extremely difficult” for the brand to remain viable, D&M said. Management of Snell products was brought under McIntosh last year. But, plans to add Snell production to McIntosh’s Binghamton, N.Y., plant were postponed.

D&M bought Escient and its brand of Fireball hard-drive based digital music managers and players in 2003 as it rolled up acquisitions following its founding a year earlier. The move to halt sales of Escient products didn’t surprise dealers, some of whom said sales slowed in recent years as the company was eclipsed by high-end suppliers like Kaleidescape. Escient was said to be a stronger seller in international markets than in the U.S. The distribution of Snell products came as part of D&M’s 2005 purchase of Boston Acoustics and the brand was hampered by dwindling sales, dealers said.

"My impression was they were going to put their efforts in things that would make them more money,” said Bjorn Dybdahl, president of San Antonio AV specialist Bjorn’s Audio Video. “We sold very little” Escient product and “it wasn’t a surprise,” Dybdahl said. “When you are limited financially, you have to put your business where you can make better money."

D&M has restructured several times since its founding, including selling off Rio digital audio player and ReplayTV DVR brands it acquired from bankrupt SonicBlue in 2003. Rio was sold to SigmaTel in 2005 and DirecTV bought the remaining ReplayTV assets two years later. Shortly after being taken private in 2008, Denon and Boston Acoustics brands were brought under a single management (CED Dec 15/08 p1). RHJ International sold its 49 percent stake in D&M to Bain Capital for $441 million. D&M CEO Vic Pacor left the company in March 2009 and was replaced by a former Bain executive vice president. As part of a renewed focus on core brands, D&M will return to the CEDIA show in September after a year’s absence (CED July 1 p5), it said.

Meanwhile, Toshiba’s U.S. CE subsidiary is combining its TV and digital AV marketing departments under Scott Ramirez, who formerly headed the TV group, the company said. In addition to TVs, Ramirez will oversee marketing of DVD and Blu-ray players, TV combo units and digital picture frames. Jodi Sally, who was previously vice president of digital AV marketing, will continue in that role in the new department, a company spokeswoman said. Maria Repole, assistant vice president corporate communications, advanced to vice president of communications for TACP with added responsibility for retail training. Like Ramirez, Repole has been at Toshiba for 11 years. The restructuring is designed to “increase synergy, better serve retailers and more strongly position the brand,” the company said.

Toshiba has suffered from tight supply of LCD panels in North America, which has caused delays in 2010 models, Zoran executives have said (CED March 11 p1). Zoran supplies SupraHD processors for Toshiba TVs. While Toshiba remains a viable TV brand in North America, it has shifted some of its emphasis to Japan where it has a larger market share, Zoran officials have said.

In another cost-saving measure by a Japanese company, Sanyo shifted distribution of its alkaline and nickel-metal hydride rechargeable consumer batteries to ToCAD. Two employees responsible for the battery line in Sanyo’s Chatsworth, Calif., office will be rehired by ToCAD, a Sanyo spokesman said. Sanyo also will continue R&D for its eneloop rechargeable batteries and provide customer service, he said. The move to outsource distribution to ToCAD will help expand Sanyo’s battery business. “The real benefit here to Sanyo is that we can leverage ToCAD’s dealer network to make a bigger push into more diverse sales channels to expand our business,” the Sanyo spokesman said. Rockaway, N.J.-based ToCAD also distributes Sunpak digital photo frames, SD card readers and solar chargers and Hakuba full-size photo and video tripods.