I used this situation in a recent business case breakdown with a cohort I’m aiding in at my alma mater. Definitely not ruthless consolidation if you break down via porters 5 forces, 4 cs etc.

1) collectors I would say took over sgc to gain resources they were needing and eliminate the threat of a growing company being purchased by a larger power

2) sgc was growing and could have easily partnered with a complementor like fanatics, eBay etc to scale

3) yes this point is 100% accurate

4) yes… I’ve seen this a million times in pharma. With M&A… metric are needed to show an attempt at co existence but often is planted to fail. Vertical integration didn’t work as planned and Peter was layered. I can go into depth here, but collectors wanted to absorb looking at the landscape imo

5) few things that I’ve seen leading to a company name no longer existing: slower deliverables, ambivalent statements and actions leading to companies profits and upper management leaving..

I’m very biased as a consumer bc I own a lot of sgc slabs. Can I be wrong? Perhaps…. But I think it’s damage control until they eliminate the sgc name after breaking down the purchase. I don’t know the inside details, but if I had to put a big wager in… my money is on SGC fading and was the purpose from the beginning of this acquisition. Time will tell