Bad Timing for Nortek Bankruptcy Announcement

Timing is everything, and the Nortek Chapter 11 bankruptcy announcement was really bad timing to happen in the middle of CEDIA Expo 2009.

As the news about the bankruptcy spread on the show floor, most of the Nortek companies were not there to quell speculation or anxiety among its dealer base.

Companies like Elan, Sunfire, Homelogic and Linear chose not to have exhibits at this year's show. OmniMount and SpeakerCraft did have strong presences in Atlanta and probably were sidetracked a bit by having to spend time talking to dealers about it vs. showing off products.

I heard some competitors of Elan adding fuel to the fire by raising doubt about the future of the company, telling integrators they should drop the line despite assurances from Nortek that the affiliate companies would not be affected by the holding company's troubles. I can't really blame those competitive companies for using those tactics.

The timing of the announcement couldn't have been worse.