Bob Lee Takes The Reigns Again

[Coloradobus]

It was announced late yesterday (Feb 16) that Bob Lee and Bryant Riley have purchased Country Coach from ailing National RV Holdings-Perris Valley, Ca. In fall of 2005, Riley and Lee tried a hostile take over of National only to have National RV's CEO to say the offer of $92 Million grossly undervalued National. Then, the NYSE de-valued National's stock. Last fall Bob Lee resigned as a board member from National, and then last month sold his 577,906 shares of National diviorcing himself completely.
For $38.5 million dollars Bob Lee bought CC back. National had been siphoning money off of profitable Country Coach to stay afloat. National has operated in the red for the last 17 out of 21 quarters.
It seems this happened quick enough to prevent long time CC employees from bailing. Good for everyone.

[garyde]

Bob Lee had just purchased a smaller Trailer Company several months ago. Now this Purchase. I guess its a good thing for Country Coach, they certainly have gotten beat up publicly in the last few years. I always felt they were a good Company. Gary

[Coloradobus]

Yes Gary,

Monomoy Partners from back east ( I think NY) with Bob Lee, bought Western RV out of Yakima Washington, makers of Alpine motorhomes and Alpenlite 5th wheels. Bob is now the CEO of WRV. Monomoy Partners buy small to mid sized companies, add captial to them, and nurses them back to profitability. WRV had actually closed its doors when Bob Lee and company bought them. Whatever the future holds, it will be interesting.
We have had 2 Country Coaches, a fiberglass one and an XL. If hind sight were 20/20, we should have kept the Affinity longer than we did. But we didn't know what we were suffering from....... noW we do....MPD!!!!. So we bought the CC XL double slider. Then, a Marathon! and then another one!!! We would have bought another CC bus, but that was at a time when CC #60492 was being completed and no one at Couintry Coach could tell us for sure when the new series of XLII's were going to be produced for model year 2004. We had to have another bus.....!!!!!.

[garyde]

Actually, CC was my 1st choice for my MPD. It just didn't work out. Still trying to sale my Lexa. Steve @ California Coach has it listed. The Market has been slow for used Motorhomes. Gary

[Coloradobus]

Gary,
I hope Steve gets your Lexa sold. Guaranty RV Oregon has 3, and theres another back east. Out of the 15 made, a third seem to be up for sale. The new replacement for the Lexa, the Rhapsody, debuted last month in Indio. With four slides and full rear bath, its silloutte is that of a Newell. It's price tag is right up there, rumoured $1.1 mill.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Gary

Having never heard of a Lexa I went to the ad to take a peek, Very nice.

How would you compare that C15 to the 60Series?

[garyde]

Hi Joe. The Cat engine with the Turbo and the Allison 4000 made for a great ride. No problems . As far as I can tell, both the Detroit and the Cat are great engines. Lots of power, and Torque. The mileage is a little better ( about one mile to the gallon) with the Detroit engine with simillar weights for both the Lexa and the Liberty. (The Lexa is 42' and the Liberty is 45'.)
Gary

[garyde]

Gary,
I hope Steve gets your Lexa sold. Guaranty RV Oregon has 3, and theres another back east. Out of the 15 made, a third seem to be up for sale. The new replacement for the Lexa, the Rhapsody, debuted last month in Indio. With four slides and full rear bath, its silloutte is that of a Newell. It's price tag is right up there, rumoured $1.1 mill.

Its very interesting. Lexa's listed anywhere from $600,000.00 to $700,000.00 with most of them being custom builds inside.
It was designed based upon the Prevost Conversion.

Now CC is going at it again , competeing with Newell. I hope they have better luck.

The question is 'why spend 1 mil for a Plastic Coach.'