Which Patterson Dental branches have been closed?

https://dockets.justia.com/docket/illinois/ilndce/1:2017cv03881/340292

Patterson Dental Supplies, Inc. v. Midway Dental Supply, Inc. et al
Filed: May 23, 2017 as 1:2017cv03881
Plaintiff: Patterson Dental Supplies, Inc.
Defendant: Midway Dental Supply, Inc., Joann Cacciatore, Ryan Clery and others
Cause Of Action: (b) Civil Action to Protect Trade Secrets
Court: Seventh Circuit › Illinois › Illinois Northern District Court
Type: Other Statutes › Other Statutory Actions

 

That's funny. Trade secrets! Bwahahahaha!!

 

If by trade secrets they mean 10 years of regurgitated ppt slides then the judge willl have a great laugh. I wonder if they're claiming the fight song is they're own?

 

Cash flow issues/ working capital issues, new Ceo hopefully soon, new erp that many hate, dental segment losing market penetration, a .25% match in the employee stock purchase program, struggling to retain and recruit talent from what I've noticed...stifel just downgraded pdco to a sell with pt at 39. I think stock and in return our retirement accounts will go down big on Q1 FY18 earnings release. Stock price gets low enough maybe PDCO will get bought and saved from itself. I was told that FY18 is going to be one of the worst that Patterson has ever had. Who knows what will really happen. Thoughts?

 

Amen! This is right on 100%

 

I worked there 20 years. I hope this place implodes!

 

What about Scott Anderson and Ann Gugino recently telling us how we will all be rewarded handsomely from the decisions and investments we're currently making? Were they referring to their own golden parachutes? When you say FY18 being one of the worst in co. history, are you predicting shitty sales or costs associated with SAP, Sirona exclusive tarriff write-off, or what? That .25% ESOP contirbution while not a huge impact to most, felt like a swift kick in the nuts given the current state of morale and illustrates a serious lack of concern for employees from the MN mafia.

 

As much as I used to love this company for it's ability to stay grounded and work fairly with Mfg's to find common ground and create win/win's - those days just seem to be distant memory. Markets change and therefore the approach has to as well and we simply haven't done anything timely in years.

What's so staggering is just how far disconnected Patterson is from it's consumer's needs even with the millions of dollars in resources and plethora of advisors it boasts to have. It wasn't even that long ago that we had actual moon-landed astronauts on stage to pump us up. You could feel the desperation in those moonshot meetings and then watch it all unravel before our eyes.

Anderson talked so often about a $55 stock in recent year's just tell you how little he knew about what's coming our way. He's gone now, I just hope Misiak, Gugino and the rest of the inner circle do the right thing and fall on the sword before it's too late. I can't see a new CEO walking into that mess and thinking this thing can be turned around with these dimwits.

So regardless of the lift in our economy from whatever happens politically, FY'18 will be full of downers for Patterson: sales down, margins down, SAP gong-show, quality people will continue to exit, and whatever uptick Vet can provide won't make up for it. Just awful.

 

The continuing disastrous roll outs of the SAP software to the branches is driving even more people to flee this sinking ship.

Add in the frivolous lawsuit against Midway and you can see the upper management has no answers.

I'd expect a complete house cleaning at the regional president level. It had to be difficult to find such a miserable group.
Looks like a rough road ahead

 

They're not going to do anything to the regionals. Aside from more pressure to sell... Everyone wants to blame the MN Mafia and for large strategic decisions they are. But the for soldiers on the ground are also to blame. At no point did you have to continue to charge a higher price. You could have found a lower cost item to sell or lowered your margins but that commission check was nice and you decided to ride that wave without a care in the world. Now when your pressed by the competition and your Dr's for lower costs you look like the greedy one. And your caught in a no win situation, if you lower your prices you've been taking them for a ride, when you don't your just to high proceed and they've got to cut where they can, vacation home and all... it's true those in MN have screwed this company up royally, but the culpability of the sales staff is there to. Just saying, it's an ugly truth no one wants to talk about.

 

I don't entirely disagree, the sales force always has to take some responsibility, but it the case of margins and how willing reps were to lower their pricing, that came from above as well. I think that was actually part of the so called "formula" used when they apexed or downsized the sales force. They let go of the tenured reps who had allowed their margins to shrink.

So how comfortable can you be moving forward when you are forced to lower your margins to compete but in the back of your mind wonder if this is putting you on a list to get canned. Or more likely, your branch manager, who is probably new with no dental background, is on your ass about it.

If the regionals don't go, the company is doomed for sure.

 

Problem is if you don't lower your margins now you don't get any business, thank you SAP. Its a vicious cycle. The regionals and many of the GMs are a major part of the issues. They're playing political games and favoritism and overlooking the hard chargers if they're not in the clique. Feel bad for those who are on the outside looking in they'll never know until the next "realignment"...

 

Their are multiple "optimizations" going on at PDCO from what I hear...FSS (AR and AP), supply planning, DCs, and a few lesser branch initiatives. The goal of all of these is to get the company running on SAP smoothly and being able to negotiate terms/contracts with vendors and customers better, or so they say. I think it is actually more for the management to be able to say "look my department is doing it's job, we are no longer contributing to the problem." Most know there is a problem, and everyone is pointing fingers at each other. After the "optimizations" are compete and most depts are running smoothly, maybe then they can then shift the blame of any lackluster performance to the people that make the company money (the branches and sales reps).

FY18 is going to be shitty I think to do the end of FY17 Q4 combined with continuous SAP implementation issues. If you read the earnings call transcripts for Q3 and subsequent reports by analysts there were serious concerns over the working capital. So what did PDCO do to combat this? As an example. PDCO "reviewed payments" at Q4-end from what I was told meaning they stopped many vendor payments. To what end? I don't want to get into too much detail but I THINK PDCO's actions at Q4 FY17 COULD transfer over to FY18 Q1 and beyond IF there was any "window dressing". But who knows?! Have to make some protections here given Midway and all (this entire post is only an opinion). I do know that I dropped out of the ESPP...

The Street analysts aren't dumb and they probably have a connection or someone that knows someone that knows someone in the company that talks about things. Coincidence that PDCO was downgraded suddenly by multiple firms recently when the stock has been upticking since year-end and Anderson got the boot? Patterson has 15 major competitors according to a recent analyst report. The stock gets low enough don't be surprised if we get bought up! As much as people dislike the MN Mafia, their bonuses ride on the stock doing well. If stock is down and executive bonuses with it then their anger trickles down and the buck stops with the guy making minimum wage somewhere and our sales reps lol. Good luck fellas!

 

Just keep matching those prices and we'll make up for it with equipment sales. Wait. What? You have to match prices on equipment too? Well what about Cerec? Hmmm. How about this - Cut 1/2 of the remaining TR's. Send them back to working chairside or waiting tables; the final destination for folks with their skill set and education level. Lower the prices dramatically and take all the glove and glue sales to the web. Customers ultimately won't care as long as they're saving on merch. and can still get it quick. The survivors can have an account list 2 - 3 times larger filled with mid level markets and DSO with fewer touches, better business analytics, and charge hard in equipment prospecting. Differentiate with the best service and technology offerings and actually outsell the competition. These things are possible.

Viva Le SAP!

 

Crazy thing is your on track with where things are going. Either your a psychic or just intelligent enough and pay attention to business either way, the cuts are not done. The territories WILL be massive and yes SAP will always suck... so bring on the future. There will be blood, and I say let it flow.

 

"A survey was conducted among industry professionals who considered Henry Schein as their primary distributor and was asked if their respective practice is more likely to purchase high-tech equipment from Dentsply Sirona.

The analyst believes that if Patterson was previously selling approximately 1,000 CEREC units in North America then Henry Schein's increased presence in the space could help accelerate market adoption, but naturally at the expense of Patterson (see Block's track record here). As a result, 1,100 units could be sold, but only 800 to 900 comes from Patterson with the remaining 200 to 300 units from Henry Schein, the analyst noted. However, Patterson's bigger problem could be the impact to its consumable market share.

"Our prior work highlighted Patterson's dominant consumable market share within CEREC accounts, and today's work suggests share losses may take place among a subset of these accounts once Henry Schein starts supporting the Dentsply Sirona product line," the analyst explained.

In terms of numbers, Patterson's consumable share within CEREC practices could fall from 59.9 percent to 53.5 percent, Block added. Working under the assumption that CEREC accounts for half of Patterson's dental consumable revenue, it is possible the company's North American consumable share could drop by at least 200 basis points over the next two years."

In other words, it's been a good run... wall street doesn't expect much... and shouldn't.

 

CEREC numbers will take a smaller hit this year but Schein has been at this for a long time in Europe so they won't take forever to get up and running. It's also in Sirona's best interest to pour some resources at Schein to get the up running fast. And make no mistake, CEREC is due for an upgrade and I can tell you that a lot of CEREC customers were also Schein customers and they'll have no issue switching block business and buying their upgrades from them.

The question is how will we react to all of this? "Brand New Day?" What a joke. Jettison the dental management team and regional humps sooner than later and find people that can come up with real solutions to today's challenges versus the never ending treadmill of BS that gets floated around our way.

First step is to put a gag order on Gugino as she has had way too much pull in this place and is responsible for most of the poor decision making that goes on here. How the f*ck did she get to that spot in the first place? I'm sure Anderson won't miss that ditz ear-raping him 24/7.