Freedom Groups customers were buying, often at a premium, field-tested military gear. Having said that, Freedomless group tried to pull a dirtbag move and they received the punishment they deserved. Briefly, I worked for the company that most of the Freedom Group management came from and if Kevin had talked to anyone from that company he never would have entered into the agreement he did with them. During the training, Feinberg was struck by the inferior quality of the camps range and facilities. The first was the absolute wreckage they made of Marlin and the damage done to Marlins employees and above all quality control. Matter of fact most of the gun industry is pretty much Tonys Car Repair stuff. Unions arent perfect, but as a member of a construction trade union all of my benefits are rolled into one hourly rate that the contractor pays. Freedom Group and Remington had conspired to find a way to fire Kevin in order to save $4 to $8 million that he was due as performance incentives and pay. It has owned a water park in Texas and a television station in Salt Lake City. The gun cultures objection to conglomeration was reminiscent of objections Id once heard from conscious consumers when Unilever had purchased Ben & Jerrys. TAPCO In 2009, Brittingham sold the company to Remington Arms. By the end of the year, Remington Outdoors annual sales had finally passed its billion-dollar target. Judge's Ruling Reveals the Truth About Kevin Brittingham and Freedom Kollitides needed a fix, quickly. Jack Brittingham net worth Feb, 2023 - People Ai The next year was even worse. Best. Technically as soon as the company was sold they needed to start operating under a new FFL, since they had only purchased the assets and not the business itself. Before being acquired by Cerberus, Bushmasters bare-bones product brochure had all the glamour of a catalogue of plumbing fixtures. I apologize, but Im going off on a tangent here. I think I can build and test a few for less than 10K but biz stuff will bring the most cost I am sure. The two were both pseudo-populist billionaires from New York, but otherwise dissimilar. Nowhere is the lab-leak debate more personal than among the experts investigating the origins of COVID. All I was saying is, with just them doing it, its understandable their compliance was a mess. The guys buying in insist on a controlling interest, board seats, the charimanship and injecting a new CEO because theyre the boss. 17.5k Followers, 1,349 Following, 3,347 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Kevin Brittingham (@kevinbrittingham) At that distance, he couldnt just aim his weapon at the target; he had to lob the bullet like an artillery shell. The only good news was that Kevin was untouchable unless he committed a felony, or broke company policy. . Freedom Groups connection to the bailout rankled right-wing gun enthusiasts. Most of these fees could be collected only once the investment had been closed meaning that even before he entered a business, Feinberg was thinking about how to exit. Without the fear of a Democratic president seizing their guns, theres no need for hoarding. That marketing was the focus of the lawsuit brought against Remington by the victims of Sandy Hook. There, the acquiring company often has a retention payment for key players to keep them around through the integration. You either have two or you have 20. The intent of the law was to get bad people off the streetsin theory. Indeed, it seems the more powerful the system, the more coverage and leeway for jerks. Others, some on TTAG, have written more comprehensive and eloquent summaries than this. See ya! itunes.apple. We'll give him,. The company was debt free and making money hand over fist, so Kevin never saw a need to sell. Wow, lot of work went into this one. Feinberg was saved by Obama. Feinberg picked Trump. Jason wanted AAC to be treated like another plant, like Remington or Marlin or Bushmaster, with Remington HQ as the head of operations. It sparked a war of words that quickly got personal. Dyke was a typical gun boss a country boy, a serial entrepreneur, a lifelong Republican. They certainly didnt. Dr. Brittingham currently teaches the elective courses 420.628 Ecology and Management of Wetlands and 420.625 Ecology and Management of Estuarine Systems. The problem was not anticipating these problems and accounting for them enough. Kevin Brittingham was quoted as saying he hoped FG jacked him around until the money went to his grandkids, because they are required to pay 9% interest on it. Ethically challenged executives and managers are pretty much the standard. To make the deal work, Remington would purchase AACs gear lock, stock, and barrel and transfer it to a new Remington-owned entity. Realizing that AAC would not be able to function without using Kevins personal guns for R&D, the deal allowed time for those guns to remain on premises while the transfer was taking place. Admittedly, Im kind of surprised that somebodys buying 100 silencers a month. There's Robby Johnson as overall VP, Ethan Lessard to VP of Engineering . Kevin Brittingham Profiles | Facebook Youre really comparing ATF compliance (which has been a boon to many FFLs) to selling computers? Thats why you are generating profit. But Scott Blackwell at Freedom Group told him in no uncertain terms that AAC would remain a separate entity. View FREE Public Profile & Reputation for Kevin Brittingham in Washington, DC - See Court Records | Photos | Address, Emails & Phone Number | Personal Review | $70 - $79,999 Income & Net Worth Reichert, the shooting instructor, eventually left Tier 1 Group to work on a classified high-tech firearms program for DARPA. Because the rim of the cartridge is identical, the same bolt and carrier can be used for both cartridges. One recent survey, conducted by public-health researchers from Harvard and Northeastern universities, suggested that this 3 percent owned more than half the countrys guns. Cerberus agreed but was a less generous manager. Under Review. Especially if they were MY guns. A Whistleblowers Claims About a St. Louis Transgender Center Are Under Fire. Dont mean to be demeaning. Kevin Brittingham founded Advanced Armament Corp, which became one of the biggest silencer manufacturers in the world. All rights reserved. I would otherwise be interested in the R51 as I love weird action types, but it is unfortunately illegal in Canada, the barrel is too short. He offered gold-wrapped candy bars in a stunt that showed he isnt a worthy successor to his dad. Theres a reason I dont want to deal with NFA itemsand the big one is that the amount of paperwork just isnt worth it to me. The issue is that under the original employment agreement, Kevin needed to be issued a written warning and be given an opportunity to fix the problem (over a period of 30 days). They didnt care about any of that.. http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2014/01/17/more-amusing-antilibertarian-humor-n1780470/page/full. Im shocked. That is, if it hasnt already. Silencers turn shooting more into golf.. MARLIN FIREARMS Remington eventually sent a single person to iron out the compliance issues, in the form of a former private investigator with a few days of ATF training and no background in compliance whatsoever. Novelty sells in this business more than tactical improvements, he told me. The owners and investors involved are strong supporters of the Second Amendment and are avid hunters and shooters. Two years later, three Freedom Group executives gave a million dollars each to the NRA. People really need to understand that if you dont get paid up front, free and clear, without strings attached, then you are getting ripped off. Theyre great for urban encroachment, said the companys founder, Kevin Brittingham. Kate Bedingfield, Bidens Translator, Leaves the White House. On one floor are the hedge funds, trading in distressed debt and residential mortgages. Honestly the revenue and sale of business dollars here are at the bottom end of business. . That is a huge amount of paperwork and possible violation bate. The gun business is almost like a fashion business for men. I can absolutely see why their compliance was a mess. They were driving awfully fast down the road. After a year on the board, he quit. And this is just one company, the company I work for is even worse at violating laws and regulations. It is only as good or benevolent as the people in it. It is important to point out that at the time this email was written, Remington and Freedom Group had no knowledge that Kevin had done anything wrong. I dont disagree on any particular point. The former VP has an extremely narrow path to viability in 2024. #123456abc Scary Black Rifle Industries. So did a former Bushmaster employee I spoke with, whose complaints about Cerberuss conduct sounded, at times, more like complaints about capitalism itself. His net worth is a matter of debate. In an email recorded in the final verdict, Jason Schauble outlines his plan. These types of companies even try to violate laws on the books specifically written to prevent them from being scumbags. Remington and Freedom Group manage products for the masses.completely out of line fundamentally with AACs products. Kevin Brittingham To Launch Q, A New Brand, On 1 March Thankfully, given their total incompetence in so many areas he won what never should have been an issue. Theres no systemic cure for that. The move offered nearly $40 million in state tax incentives, but Freedom Group still struggled. Walgreens Wont Sell Abortion Pills in Red States Even Where Its Legal. Profits or not, other private-equity firms, having witnessed an unprecedented revolt from investors, wont touch it. The network has reportedly instituted a soft ban on Trump, a huge problem for his campaign and for Fox News if the policy backfires. If you dont want to work for a bunch of hide-bound morons who spend their days filling out TPS reports, then dont accept a buy-out offer from a company that promised you how TPS reports are going to cure all your record-keeping problems. 2. Who Is The Richest Housewife of Dallas? RHOD Net Worth, Ranked The president surprised and angered some Democrats by declining to veto a GOP effort to block a D.C. bill. Later that month the compliance officer finally arrived, and noticed that some of the guns from the shoot were still present. Now. Oh, slow quarter since this years economy crashed? The target was Bushmaster, one of the leading makers of black guns: highly configurable assault rifles patterned after the military-issue AR-15. My takeaway from this is theres a market for an independent consulting/auditing group that specializes in NFA compliance for small firearms businesses. Thats TEN MILLION DOLLARS. Marketed to civilians as the ultimate combat weapons system, many of Bushmasters gun builds were modeled after the weapons used by Americas Special Forces. Of course, owning was a questionable term here; by the end of 2015, Remington Outdoor Company was worth less than the debt attached to it, like a house with an underwater mortgage. There are no official industry statistics for sales of new guns, but a common proxy used is the number of gun-buyer background checks conducted by the FBI each year. One major legal case challenged the NFA, and would have been successful save for a technicality causing the plaintiff to drop/abandoned the action. . He wanted Freedom Group money to expand but he wanted to lose none of his control of the business. Its nice to see the innovator and underdog in the market smack the big lazy dog that was trying some underhanded crap. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Or, perhaps more subtly, for anything that pays out later, you either have enforcement costs, or you better design things so everybody benefits together. So it seems as if there was a lot of confusion and scheming around this issue. Kevin and his buddies and his wife who built AA are good guys. Remington acted like a giant back of dicks, but it seems like he wasnt running the business solidly before the buyout too. Any contract that calls for payment to the seller on the come provides an incentive for the buyer to jack with the seller. Not that it matters to me pragmatically. What happened to registration is prelude to confiscation? Doesnt apply to silencers, machine guns, and short barreled long arms? BAD MOVE. This kind of organizational nonsense will come out in the products eventually. There was huge competition between partners, said one former employee. BARNES BULLETS Guys screwing over each other for peanuts. In 1999, he had appointed Vice-President Dan Quayle chairman of the global divisions of his firm, despite Quayles confessed lack of business experience. The final court decision has been issued in the case of Kevin Brittinghams lawsuit against Freedom Group and Remington over his sudden firing a couple years back, and its a way better read than I expected. The US Navy Special Warfare Group approached us shortly after Remington had purchased Advanced Armament from me. This approach was duplicated across a number of other Freedom Group sidelines, including manufacturers of weapon optics, pistol grips, ammunition, even clothing. So Kevin could have admitted they were his. It was also the first time since 2010 that the average net worth of a billionaire dropped - it is now $3.6. It makes no sense. The business deal would have worked fine, and theyd have all lived happily ever after. Despite these connections, Feinberg regarded himself as a regular guy. I could teach anyone how to do this with a properly sighted gun in five minutes. Gravity was a constant, and one could consult a table to calculate the trajectory. Disabling a security camera is NOT shady compared to a major corporation trying to cheat you out of $10,000,000!!!! 3. Despite the hype about Ron DeSantis surging past Donald Trump, both Republicans look unusually strong at this early stage of the presidential race. Our rifles were neither fit nor finished, nor in any condition to be offered for sale. Gun magazines and internet forums were filled with complaints, and after Cerberus bought it, Remington was forced to issue multiple recalls, for both guns and ammunition. I see a few things in your writeup that seem incorrect. At 5:00 PM, Jason Schauble sent in his resignation stating I just dont feel that we (fgi) have a fundamental philosophy that I can reconcile with on many levels.. DG, as a lawyer who represented both small and huge companies in mergers and acquisitions, all I can say is: you nailed it. A Florida bill takes a ridiculous GOP argument to the extreme, aiming to eliminate the Democratic Party for its ancient ties to white supremacy. Trumps victory means Feinberg will ascend to a position of influence he has never experienced before. Black AR-15 style .223/5.56 Rifle with shoulder thingy that goes up. 9 comments. Reichert named the company Tier 1 Group, after the Defense Departments designation for its top-level commandos. Running a company from inside a jail cell is tough. Model 123. But here are the cliff notes: Due to these decisions, the judge ruled that Kevin had been terminated without cause and was due every cent of the damages that he demanded: somewhere around $14 million plus lawyer fees and interest. Extraction pending when some personal attachments clear.). If a Remington was a gun buyers first gun, a Bushmaster was the last, the ultimate fetish object for a generation acclimated to imagery from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The strategy is to try to be useful & learn all you can about how they can (probably) make the business work when you cannot. Who was buying them? If I were the judge, Id have been tempted to issue a ruling that called into question the legality of these rules. To market their shooting platforms, the Freedom Group frequently employed the cultural imagery of the global war on terror. They werent just greedy, they were encouraged. A number of customers sued the manufacturer, claiming their guns had gone off without the trigger being pulled, prompting a class-action lawsuit. Reminds me of a conversation I had with a young man who is a sophomore at Penn, was basically convinced of the proposition that unless it is illegal, it is fair game. but the lack of evidence to support Freedom Groups assertion that the guns were Kevins makes it a moot point.. . Within days, Dyke, the companys founder, came out of semi-retirement at the age of 77, reopening his old factory under the new name Windham Weaponry and hiring back nearly all of the original employees. But revenue remains soft in a market still saturated by the assault-rifle-buying frenzy of 2013, and Remington, in a tacit acknowledgment of its critics, has abandoned the kind of combat-oriented marketing imagery that so excited its customers. During the shoot a number of guns were used which Freedom Group claims were Kevins personal firearms, but Kevin denies this claim. Named simply Q, they'll start out with just 10 employees, but it's quite the lineup. Owning a gun business doesnt just affect ones reputation it also affects ones ability to own other, less controversial businesses. In fact, a free market cannot exist in the absence of equitable rule of law. Remington makes good products. Today the laws that KB fell afoul of are run on autopilota self-perpetuating government machine. You explained it a lot better than I did on another post up a bit lol. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Rick Scott Is Unfortunately Right About Novak Djokovic. REMINGTON PMPD However, even if they came out with a longer barreled version to make it Canada compliant I would not buy it now knowing what FGI has done. So, say he leaves a pre-ban m16 on premises and an employee begins testing a new silencer design on the gun. Culture follows process, and vice-versa. These (that I have seen) have a buyout if they let the individual go early. Signing a contract with the word flounder in such a way that it appears as a signature on casual inspection is not an upstanding move either. So we called them military enthusiasts., Reichert saw Feinberg again sooner than expected. While some enthusiasts collected guns, Feinberg collected gun companies. A year later, Cerberus bought Bushmaster for $76 million from Richard Dyke, the companys founder. The 100 Most Expensive Homes in Dallas 2005 - D Magazine I think I will avoid both people and their companies and products. Interesting to me, its good strategy to work the system (vs. do the work) if you arent particularly good at doing the work. Its not clear whether Remington and Freedom Group realized that Kevin hadnt signed the document or if Kevin had tried to dupe them but either way he came back to work, accepted the lower pay, and kept right on trucking. The law even states you cant make someone sign an agreement to forfeit it. Case in point, the described photo shoot where non-owners of the items had access and moved them around to where other non-owners had access without the knowledge of the supposed owner. Which is just like saying that cheating is ok as long as you dont get caught. This story reads like everybody hearing what they wanted to hear. But if all people were basically good, why would we, increasingly, pass more and more elaborate laws? I still want a pre-Remington marlin 336, though. No, you never, ever do this. You gotta say no up front. His point applied broadly: Freedom Groups business strategy was to use Americas Special Forces as an R&D department for selling guns at Walmart. Agreed. Not budding hunters, necessarily participation rates in the outdoor sports had been stagnating for years. When youre transferring a fairly large amount of machine guns from three seperate FFLs dependent on set dates of the sale, some of which are private owned and on site at times and not at other times, every time it changes possession every move that needs to be recorded, but theres photoshoots, testing, etc often. Um, ever heard of Microsoft Windows? They didnt get the three hints, unequivocal in the balance sheet: You dont have a going business, or youd be making money & getting things done. But the fear of regulation in the aftermath spurred gun hoarding, and this was good for Cerberus. Forbes magazine estimates it at $1.2 billion; office gossip at Cerberus puts it closer to $3 billion. The lawsuit over the faulty Remington trigger mechanism had forced the company to offer another recall, this time for more than 7.5 million units, and the firm ended up losing more than $135 million in a single year, for a net profit margin of minus 17 percent. I really, really like that quote. He envisions a company with 50 people run with real leadership. Sounds like a pretty toxic environment to work in. Selling a gun that was an original Bushmaster in all but name, the new company grew to $65 million in sales in less than five years. So, getting the NFA repealed looks simple on paper, but is in reality a direct challenge to a lot of established law, regulation, and cultural acceptance. Kevin Brittingham To Form New Company - Soldier Systems Daily He interviews some pretty major players in the industry. There had been Big Pharma, and Big Oil, but never Big Gun. After Bushmaster, Freedom purchased Marlin, a manufacturer of lever-action hunting rifles; Parker, a manufacturer of ornate, collectible shotguns; DPMS, another assault-rifle manufacturer; and the big one, Remington, Americas oldest continuously operated gunmaker, whose .22 caliber hunting rifle had, for generations, served as the young firearms initiates first gun. Remingtons CEO, Tommy Millner, was selected to run the entire group. At court, it came out that the only person on Remingtons side who could sign the employment agreements and make them valid never did. Despite his success with Freedom Group, 2008 was a bad year for Feinberg. Im not arguing that. The margins on them were superb. Most interesting to me is that during the run-up, the folks speaking out against the bubble, and indeed betting against the bubble with their on money were the most demonized. With the help of some decent legal counsel, hell continue to be an innovator, and he won his case against corporate big wig a$$holes. Kevin never signed the new agreement, and Freedom Group should have known better than to consider the word flounder as Kevins official signature on an important document. But months later when the list made its way to Freedom Groups headquarters, they took it as gospel that the guns in the Kevin pile were all actually Kevins guns, did no further fact checking, and decided to fire him without notice. Net Worth in 2021. You have to file paperwork when they change hands, get moved, or change owners. You have entered an incorrect email address! This is the second major ethic issue weve seen with Freedom Group that I know of. Not long after Feinbergs trip to Blackwater, Cerberuss private-equity arm bought its first firearms manufacturer. Theyre akin to blood diamonds. Via iRealHousewives. Sure there are downsides to unions (some more than others); but my vacation, pension, retirement, health, etc accounts are all in my name and cannot be touched or withheld by anyone, and are not dependent on the further health and good management of any employer or even the union (with the exception of my pension account, which is only part of my retirement and one which I am not going to rely on having in 30 years). Kevin and the AAC guys saw what was happening and were understandably concerned. They made something, made it well, and EARNED every penny, WHILE treating their employees very well. 2. At Cerberus, he talked firearms often, once derailing a Freedom Group board meeting with a discussion of the relative ballistic merits of polymer-cased ammunition and traditional hollow-points. But if I lived in New York City in a building with a hundred people, and I saw a guy with an assault weapon in his hand in the hallway, I think Id go back in my apartment.. Scummy business practices that too many companies engage in these days, and why I cant side with the bullshit free marketeers who want places like that to have no laws or regulations controlling their bullshit. That is, if it hasnt already. Now add FG, who is coming in, buying the company with the two FFLs, and which may be taking possession of some of those NFA itemsand you have a huge problem. It is important to note that neither the compliance officer nor any of the AAC staff assisting with the segregation process knew about the terms of the sale, specifically which guns of Kevins became the property of the new AAC. In the meantime, AAC continued to use their pre-sale FFLs to conduct business while Freedom Group obtained a new one for the new AAC, and even after the new FFL was in place the existing stocks of guns and ammo that had been agreed upon as part of the sale remained in the old FFLs bound books. Brilliant portrayal of the real world. Join Facebook to connect with Kevin Brittingham and others you may know. Your above incontinence misses the main point of this post: Private contracts between two parties were treated as toilet paper by one party. Check out the CMP where guys have HUNDREDS of PERSONAL M1s etc and they know every SN, part and the freaking throat erosion number. No insult intended to Brittingham, but I suspect he would have preferred to have done things differently and avoided all of this in hindsight. The same survey estimated that members of this demographic owned, on average, 17 different firearms. Look, I grew up in rural America, he said. always recommend folks watch Glengarry Glen Ross written by David Mament. OK, Im plowing through the decision. Theres nothing wrong with some post-closing inventive payments, so long as Seller is ok with the fact that he might not see a dime of it (i.e. Q Sugar Weasel - A Q&A with Kevin Brittingham - AR Build Junkie On the dotted line of that agreement he signed only the word flounder. According to Kevin that was written in the title box, as Kevin had had his title changed from president to founder, but he doesnt remember writing it. Those who advocate for markets generally want fewer, but strongly enforced laws. [4], AAC's suppressor lineup includes models suitable for virtually every firearm caliber between .22 Long Rifle and .50 BMG. Taking into account various assets, Kevin's net worth is greater than $100,000 - $249,999; and makes between $70 - 79,999 a year. After the jury found Murdaugh guilty of murdering his wife and son, he was given two consecutive life sentences. . To pay for stuff. Eric Brittingham Net Worth And Some Interesting Facts In 2020 Its impolite to call your customers wannabes, said the former Cerberus insider. I think you [Scott Blackstone, Freedom Group] and I should seriously consider a Plan B for this business. Kevin thought that he was canned, but Remington offered him an option. Kevin Brittingham - The Original Honey Badger | RECOIL Ill wait on getting any NFA items until the law is repealed or invalidated. The compliance officer told Kevin verbally to remove any personal firearms from the premises, and Kevin set to work doing exactly that. A fool and his company are soon parted. Youve mostly answered what or how. Money was mentioned but that seems to have been to build consensus rather than the reason. REMINGTON LE The full test is available for download here, but for those who dont want to wade through all 117 pages of brilliantly written legal analysis Ill try to summarize . [24] AAC also partners with the National Rifle Association in grassroots lobbying efforts to educate voters about firearms legislation. He was replaced by another Cerberus insider, George Kollitides, who oversaw a plan to relocate most of Freedom Groups manufacturing to a disused Chrysler facility in Huntsville, Alabama. . Now Feinberg, 45, wanted to get into the field. It Sure Doesnt Seem Like Havana Syndrome Is Russias Fault. Kevin Brittingham: 300 Blackout was a commercialized wildcat cartridge that was known as 300 Whisper by J.D. During this time, as court documents showed, Kevin had succeeded in pissing off Freedom Group to the extent that they were actively looking for a reason to fire him. If you guys aren't aware, Kevin Brittingham from Q has a podcast Seems like keeping track of your personal and business property would be a no-brainer.. I was going to name Barrack Obama, then I noticed the bullshit free marketer clause and realized he was not appropriate. Regardless, short of repealing the NFA, Ownership, manufacture, maintenance, and transfer of such items is a legal nightmare, especially if you want to do it on a corporate level. He resigned because there was no plan to keep it independent. But hed left the ROTC before graduation and landed a job on Wall Street, trading securities for Drexel Burnham Lambert, the pioneer of the junk bond.
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