[Parody News Service] During a lunch time press conference at Specialized's Morgan Hill, CA headquarters, Specialized CEO Mike Sinyard announced that his company "could buy General Motors, but we don't want to."
"We sold nearly two million Langster road bicycles so far in 2008," said Sinyard, referring to his company's high margin "fixed gear" bicycles that are popular with those who emulate urban bicycle messengers. "With the profit from those bikes and record sales of Specialized's Globe commuter bicycles, we realized we can afford to buy GM."
While General Motors stock has plummeted to 10% of its year ago value, bicycle sales have soared as commuters look for ways to avoid high fuel prices. GM closed at $2.98 in regular trading Wednesday for a market capitalization of just $1.7 billion.
"The Specialized family was excited at the prospect of joining GM's team last spring," Sinyard continued, referring to an attempted merger between GM and Specialized that failed to pass muster with antitrust authorities. "I looked forward to private jet rides, but Specialized is, for now, a healthier and happier company because I'm a healthier and happier chief executive. Look at me: I could be sweating bullets begging for money on Capitol Hill, but instead I'm smiling in Bay Area sunshine in my bike shorts getting ready to have fun on my bike. And GM wouldn't have let me keep my old VW microbus."
At this point, Sinyard unveiled a chart showing "Things we could buy, but don't want to." His list includes: 6,000,000 feet of lead tubing; 3,000,000 cartons of cigarettes; 1,500,000 barrels of oil; and 2,000,000 head of cattle.
Sinyard closed the press conference with a short Q&A, where he was asked if he was interested in buying GM if Ford was thrown in for free, which he declined immediately. During the Q&A he also declined to buy 3,443 bank-owned homes in New Jersey, but said that he was interested in another cup of mint tea. Journalists attending the press conference were then invited to join Sinyard for the "Big Easy" bike ride.
Thank you to Chris for the heads up on this important press conference.
7 comments:
Fantastic, been waiting for this to happen. Lets hope all Bike manufacturers can keep things on the real like this in the profitable times ahead!
I guess I should make it clear that this is parody. Chris can provide some more background, but this press conference didn't really happen.
This is a play on the April Fool's joke that GM was going to buy Specialized...isn't it a bit early for a "turnaround joke"?
Never too oily for parroty.
In these times, it's not impossible for it to be true, though.
...fritzster...you are just lookin' to get yerself inta trouble, aren't cha, mister ???...
...& ghostrider...the timing couldn't be more perfect...
I like it. Good stuff Fritz. Sure it is not "technically" true, but maybe one day.
Worthy of The Onion at its best!
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