Mitsubishi Pencils acquires Lamy

[jungkind]

In the last few years Lamy was very present in the Asian market with special editions in Japan, Korea and China, as well as Brand cooperation's like Itoya, Kunamon, Line Friends, Pokemon etc.

 

This market presence could have been another reason for Mitsubishi, entering into a new product range using a already well known Brand 

 

[txomsy]

OTOH, I was made aware not too long ago of a Spanish saying:

 

The father creates, the son maintains, the grandson closes.

 

Don't know if that might be the case, but it is difficult to hope that generation after generation the interest and passion is focused and that new generations do not grow bored and want to pursue their own interests.

 

[Udo]

Vor 20 Stunden sagte Chandon:

Interessante Idee. Ich dachte immer, dass es eine gewisse Synergie zwischen Lamy und Tombow gibt, da beide Unternehmen in den letzten 40 Jahren Pioniere des innovativen Designs waren. Ich weiß, dass Tombow noch nie ein Unternehmen war, das viele Füllfederhalter herstellt, aber schauen Sie sich Linien wie den Zoom und das Objekt an und Sie werden sehen, dass sie ein wirklich innovatives Unternehmen sind. Einige der innovativsten Designs von Lamy waren seine Kugelschreiber und Bleistifte (Noto, Pico, Dialog, Spirit, ABC, Scribble usw.), so dass es eine echte Synergie mit Tombow gab. Obwohl ich das Design für brillant halte, bin ich kein Fan von Kuru Togas, da ich einen Bleistift selbst drehen kann und sie nicht ideal für Kursivschrift sind. Auf der anderen Seite denke ich, dass der Mono Druckbleistift einer der besten ist, die es gibt (für seinen Preis). Tombows Holzstifte sind genauso gut (wenn nicht besser) als die von Mitsubishi. Alles zum Nachdenken.

 

Full agreement. Tombow is now my brand. As the brand advertises on its website: "Tombow is always at your side - always". It's just fun to work with Tombow products. Starting with the erasers, the precision erasers, the correction rollers through to the "Zoom" writing instruments, which are now also design classics. Even the glue bottles are designer pieces and work perfectly, like all Tombow products. As a second high-quality design brand, LAMY would have been a perfect match for Tombow Pencil.

[Paul-in-SF]

I am not a particular fan of Lamy pens, not because they are not good products, just because they don't suit me. So I come at this change with no sentiment and no particular expectations. 

 

I agree with those who emphasize the business aspects of his decision. Personally, I don't see any particular virtue in a family-owned and operated business if the heirs are not themselves capable of or interested in learning and operating the business as well as the founders/previous generations. This seems to be a good example of that situation. 

 

The chances seem low that Mitsubishi purchased the company to gut it and sell off the pieces. Assuming that they intend to continue to run it as the sort of business that it has been, they bring to the table a huge fund of experience and expertise in business, including marketing and product management. There is probably no need to fear that employees will suffer, only current management is likely to be changed. Product lines will probably be changed over time, either scrapped and replaced with something else, or changed to try to improve their appeal to consumers. These are the same kinds of changes that any well-run business would make, as the current Lamy management would have made if they had been capable of doing so effectively. It appears that they were not very capable in that regard, and were not being good stewards of the Lamy brand. That being the case, this seems on the whole to be a positive development. All any of us can do, of course, is wait and see.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Just wish I could have found more Safari pencils in LE colors.  I have a yellow one, wouldn't mind more.

[Claes]

Search for Swedish speciality in this subforum. Could that be something for you? 

 

Have fun

Claes in Lund, Sweden 

[austollie]

I'm a real fan of Lamy products (particularly Lamy 2000 and the Lamy Safari with all its many SE colours) and I look at this acquisition by Mitsubishi with some trepidation.  I suppose that at the end of the day, we're just talking about fountain pens here so that I just need to accept what's happened.  If Lamy branded products continue to appeal to me, I will buy them.  If not, I'll need to find another brand.

[Surlyprof]

I like my 7 or 8 Lamy pens but also own about as many as I’m going to own.  Of course, if Mitsubishi chooses to produce a color 2000 without a LE upcharge… that may change my tune.  Fingers crossed!

[Chimera01]

The acquisition gets a mention in the New York Times today, alongside the 'Dark Lilac' controversy!

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/style/lamy-dark-lilac-ink.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aE0.H1dw.8w4IVXKERsZb&smid=url-share

[Tom Kellie]

https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/business/companies/20240305-172590/

[tommym]

I am hoping for a Lamy-San Safari 2025 Cherry Blossom Special Edition pen and ink. A special edition White ink with matching white stationery can be promoted as the ultimate Zen writing experience. As far as speeding up overseas expansion, China has already done that for them. Just rebrand the overseas stuff as an entry-level, budget-friendly product line named Lam-e.

 

 

Tommy

[welch]

Mentioned in the NY Times article about the re-introduction (almost) of Dark Lilac:

 

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-mitsubishi-pencil-company-acquires-lamy-aiming-to-lead-the-company-and-brand-into-the-future-302074461.html

[bizhe]

The comment about M. getting access to L's distribution network: ++

 

I remember reading on a pencil review website that M's pencils were not easily purchased in Germany, where there would I believe be an appreciative market.

 

Also, this allows M. to get into the fountain pen business. Surely the acquisition agreement requires that L's workers, who make fountain pens, be kept. Some could be retrained but there is no point in having them make M. (or L.) rollerballs and pencils.

 

Having said that, it would be logical for the poor-selling FPs to be phased out. Perhaps new models in the future; German-Japanese fusion could be interesting!

[Easigraf]

On 2/29/2024 at 8:59 AM, inkstainedruth said:

Hmmm.  Wondering now if this is why the 2024 Safari SEs are two-toned (the sections being a different color from the barrels and caps).  

I kept thinking that this seemed to be similar to a lot of the color choices for Sailor pens, which will have a different color end cap or section from the rest of the pen in a lot of their lines these days....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

I thought just this! 

[Easigraf]

On 2/29/2024 at 9:46 AM, Mark from Yorkshire said:

I hope this doesn’t spell the end for Lamy fountain pens. Mitsubishi Pencil CO’s specialty is Rollerballs and Mechanical pencils. I can see them discontinuing the bottled inks and also cartridges and only continuing with the maker specific filled rollerballs and ball points. That and als the mechanical pencils I do hope to god that I’m wrong but only time will tell.

Agreed. Though, I do always have a Mitsubishi Signo on me, I am not sure whether they will be able to continue LAMY's legacy in fountain pens. It is interesting to see their next move!!

[Prof Drew]

Some of you might be interested in the analysis of 4 fountain pen peeps who live in Tokyo commenting on the Mitsubishi Pencil acquisition of Lamy on their wonderful Tokyo Inklings podcast, Tokyo Inklings. They are all gaikokjin (foreign nationals), but have lived in Japan. CY works in luxury / FP world and Fedefan works in the finance sector, so their comments are especially revealing... including comments from the Investor Relations documents from Mitsubishi Pencil. This episode also talks about the Maruzen and Mistukoshi Pen Shows (which I hope to attend someday) and the impact of the Noto Peninsula earthquake on Wajima nuri / lacquer/  urushi craft work that was done there.  #Tokyo Inklings #Lamy #Mistubishi Pencil #Wajima

[Calabria]

Ich hab‘ mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren …

 

I was wondering what’s going on at Lamy because there seemed to be a sort of media silence after the years that saw new models, magazines, announcements regularly.

 

I’ll miss the more quirky aspects of the brand, even or because they weren’t successful, like the Ideos. I expect the product line to get smaller as funky color combos abound. 

[krayzie]

About time for some Lamy M-16 Gel refills.

[Surlyprof]

On 3/27/2024 at 6:08 PM, krayzie said:

About time for some Lamy M-16 Gel refills.

O-o-oh… That’s a good point!  

[krayzie]

12 hours ago, Surlyprof said:

O-o-oh… That’s a good point!  

 

I could never understand why Lamy being such a cool design brand would not have gel ballpoint refills. Even Parker has been doing gel ballpoint refills for almost 20 years (new lease in life with my old Rotrings). If it's Montblanc stuck in the past with market segmentation and purposely using crappy Schmidt refills just to protect their high priced fountain pens that I can understand.

 

So I see this merger being a good thing to update some of the old German tech (imagine a Kuro-Toga Scribble). They can keep pumping out new colorful volume stuff like Safari, while we can re-purpose alot of their old crappy writing quality ballpoints and rollerballs like unic, spirit, pico, Dialog 1/2 etc. Nothing fits more perfect than an original refill.