Has there ever been an indication?

[ThundahBeagle]

I recently read on MTO that Victorinox had once owned Bear & Son, and that that's how they came to be in the plyers based tool game. Clearly Bear started making the Jaws after seeing the PST.

Personally, I take that to mean that Vic must have had an A$$-pucker moment, and stood up and taken notice of what Tim Leatherman accomplished in such a short time, and the quality that went along with it. But Bear must have been an easier purchase than Leatherman would have been. I mean, if Gerber, Bear, and Swiss tool came out in the early to mid 90's, Leatherman had only been available on the market for a little over a decade, and had clearly changed the lay of the land drastically.

I've carried a Swiss Army Knife seemingly forever, but I remember being introduced to the Leatherman in the late 90's. It took a lot for me to believe there could b something better than the Swiss Army Knife out there, but once I tried it, I was hooked (even though my first one was a knock off).

Has there ever been any other sort of indication that Vic could be interested in acquiring Leatherman in the future, a la Disney acquiring Lucasfilm?

What might happen to Leatherman when Tim fully retires? Does he have kids or some "top employee" or business partner who are already helping to, or who might want to run the place in the future? Or, whenever he is ready, does it look like he may just sell it off for a huge lump sum and sail away?

[in_sympathy]

 The fun thing about Disney is that it actually was acquired by Pixar, who owned Lucasfilm already at that moment . However I don’t really think Victorinox will attemp to acquire Leatherman in the nearest future. Both companies seem to be doing pretty well and developing in close yet different directions.

[Poncho65]

Tim's son is already running some of the business now

Tim told me that the first job he gave his son was to put the snap rings on the  !!!MINI!!! He then laughed and said I was either going to make him or break him with the company He said that job didn't go over well with him but he stuck with the company and I think went to college and now runs some R&D and part of the business end of the company

[gregozedobe]

I recently read on MTO that Victorinox had once owned Bear & Son, and that that's how they came to be in the plyers based tool game. Clearly Bear started making the Jaws after seeing the PST.

Personally, I take that to mean that Vic must have had an A$$-pucker moment, and stood up and taken notice of what Tim Leatherman accomplished in such a short time, and the quality that went along with it. But Bear must have been an easier purchase than Leatherman would have been. I mean, if Gerber, Bear, and Swiss tool came out in the early to mid 90's, Leatherman had only been available on the market for a little over a decade, and had clearly changed the lay of the land drastically.

The story I heard was that Vic bought Bear & Sons specifically to acquire the patents covering outside opening component tools, and once they owned the patents they didn't actually need Bear & Sons any more, so they sold the company on.  So Vic wouldn't have had a compelling reason to buy Leatherman as LM didn't have the patents Vic wanted.

[ThePeacent]

Tim's son is already running some of the business now

Tim told me that the first job he gave his son was to put the snap rings on the  !!!MINI!!! He then laughed and said I was either going to make him or break him with the company He said that job didn't go over well with him but he stuck with the company and I think went to college and now runs some R&D and part of the business end of the company

that's similar to what he told me when I met him, back then. I was curious and asked, not like I wanted to take his place in the company but still...   

[Huntsman]

Here is Chako's post on Bear

https://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,52527.0.html

..... And ..... what they said

[VICMAN]

Interesting info on Bear & Sons and Victorinox. Thanks for sharing.