Diamond Select Toys is Shutting Down

Does anyone know of podcasts or other media where toy industry folks discuss 'inside baseball'? I watched a show with comic book store owners who were talking with a reporter about the Diamond purchase, and they speculated that toys were a main motivator for Ad Populum making the purchase. I don't know how closing DST and letting Diamond Comic Distributors fail, while not communicating with publishers, retailers, or customers, is a good business strategy. Maybe they did just purchase Diamond as a tax right off? I really hope they have some plan for DST. The folks in the video point out that Ad Populum has a lot of experience purchasing distressed companies, and all their current actions are deliberate (even if they don't seem to make sense). I'm trying to hold onto hope that DST will continue in some form, but that's getting tougher every day that passes without any hint that Ad Populum has any plan.

The Diamond discussion starts around 30 minutes into the below video.

 
Constantly looking for any kind of word from a company who (very likely) doesn't communicate with the general public about it's business plans is going to drive you nuts.

Just let things go, and if lines continue, they will, if not, so be it. No sense giving yourself an ulcer trying to pick the metaphorical brain of a company to see what their plans are..
 
But the question is what figures were actually in production? Are we sure the answer isn't actually *zero*, which is why there is nothing to communicate?

If they still didn't know if Eowyn was getting her unhelmeted head or not - that figure was not in production. And that's the kind of insane DST BS I will not miss.
 
Schizm said:
But the question is what figures were actually in production? Are we sure the answer isn't actually *zero*, which is why there is nothing to communicate?
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Nope, we have no idea. We won't know for a few more months.

I'd be surprised if it were zero. Companies don't usually have that much foresight about bankruptcy. Or, if they do, they continue as if nothing were happening.
 
TheSameIdiot said:
Nope, we have no idea. We won't know for a few more months.

I'd be surprised if it were zero. Companies don't usually have that much foresight about bankruptcy. Or, if they do, they continue as if nothing were happening.
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Apparently, Diamond was in talks with potential buyers at SDCC last year, well before they filed for bankruptcy in January. They were obviously in financial trouble for a while. Since there were some figures that were supposed to come out last April that were still not released, I'm worried DST had halted production of figures over a year ago. I really hope that's not the case. As @SalemCrow pointed out, all we can do is wait and find out. Or, do like me and continue to unhealthily obsesses over trying to find answers that aren't available.
 
Bills all day said:
Apparently, Diamond was in talks with potential buyers at SDCC last year, well before they filed for bankruptcy in January. They were obviously in financial trouble for a while. Since there were some figures that were supposed to come out last April that were still not released, I'm worried DST had halted production of figures over a year ago. I really hope that's not the case. As @SalemCrow pointed out, all we can do is wait and find out. Or, do like me and continue to unhealthily obsesses over trying to find answers that aren't available.
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I guess that makes sense. I know DST was far from the only company to do it, but I feel like they were one of the worst offenders in terms of announcing something and then it disappearing for ages/forever with them saying something to the effect of "we're working out parts issues" and all that. Of all the things announced over the last few years that I was looking forward to- the Invader Zim line, the continuation of the LOTR and NBX lines, some of the Star Wars gallery statues (I'll be forever bummed they showed off Plo Koon)- just kinda fizzled out and were quietly buried. I should've seen it coming, but they released just enough that it felt like things were alright, and just when you started to give up hope that something would be released, it would be.

Obviously I hold no ill will toward them. Despite all the flaws, you can tell they always tried their best, and their fan interactions were certainly some of the best in the biz. It's a crappy situation all around.
 
Bills all day said:
Apparently, Diamond was in talks with potential buyers at SDCC last year, well before they filed for bankruptcy in January. They were obviously in financial trouble for a while
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They almost assuredly were, considering how things went. But the latter doesn't necessarily have to follow from the former. We've had discussions with people that wanted to buy our company out a couple of different times and we are, in fact, completely solvent. Sometimes selling is still a good option, or offers opportunities you might not have operating under your current conditions.

It's definitely a weird situation to see things falling apart and do basically nothing about it, which is really what it seems like Diamond did. The tried-and-true promise of failure provided by seeing that things aren't working, but continuing business-as-usual anyway because leadership is too dimwitted to do anything else.
 
The DST website has recently been changed. I assume it is either about to get updated or taken down. It used to have links to categories of products. Now it just has the "stepping away" message, and the tabs are no longer populated. Maybe we'll actually get some new info soon. Maybe not.
 
The below article was posted today. It doesn't really have any new updates about the status DST pre-orders, except that apparently a retailer had heard at least some of the pre-orders were already in production and potentially shipped. "One retailer told me they had recently spoken to a senior rep at Diamond who told them some items were already in production, others were on a boat shipping from the factory to the US, but nobody can get a straight answer on what said items are." Despite this seemingly positive update, the article was overall pretty pessimistic about any pre-orders actually getting released, given there's been no clear communication from Ad Populum to retailers or buyers in the 2 months since DST was shut down.
marvelousnews.com

What's Happening With Diamond Select Toys Pre-Orders???

Back in mid-May we reported how Universal Distribution LLC and Ad Populum, the new owners of the Diamond Distributors assets which included Diamond Select Toy
marvelousnews.com

On the optimistic side, someone on the Minimates forum speculated that Ad Populum is prevented from taking any real action or communicating until all the bankruptcy stuff is finalized. I'm not sure if that's how it works, but it seems feasible to me that Ad Populum is waiting for things to settle before committing to anything by communicating plans to buyers and retailers. Old Diamond is definitely making a mess on their way out.
 
Yeah - until the bankruptcy settles they can’t sell any merchandise. Here’s an exerpt from John Morrow’s (publisher of the magazines “Back Issue” “Alter Ego” etc) letter objecting to the liquidation of Diamond’s “assets” - where he states that those are books publisher like him own and are owed money from Diamond - and will be hurt if there products flood the market at pennies on the dollar https://bleedingcool.com/comics/two...s-to-diamond-bankruptcy-liquidation-of-stock/
 
Yeah, it's getting messy. Dynamite is in a similar situation and were concerned they may not even make payroll if they don't get some money back through the settlement. Diamond (or Ad Populum for all intents and purposes) wants to be able to liquidate the comics they have which were all supposed to be delivered to the shops that ordered them months ago. The publishers want to take ownership of their own stock or be paid for it while Ad Populum wants to be able to liquidate it. It's pretty ridiculous, but given that a lot of the issues are probably now dated they may not be worth a whole lot either. In the case of Dynamite, they are now partnered with another distributor (Penguin, I think) and are now finally distributing their books again. I just got the Gargoyles Demona #1 yesterday at my local store which was supposed to be out in May.
 
Misfit said:
Yeah, it's getting messy. Dynamite is in a similar situation and were concerned they may not even make payroll if they don't get some money back through the settlement. Diamond (or Ad Populum for all intents and purposes) wants to be able to liquidate the comics they have which were all supposed to be delivered to the shops that ordered them months ago. The publishers want to take ownership of their own stock or be paid for it while Ad Populum wants to be able to liquidate it. It's pretty ridiculous, but given that a lot of the issues are probably now dated they may not be worth a whole lot either. In the case of Dynamite, they are now partnered with another distributor (Penguin, I think) and are now finally distributing their books again. I just got the Gargoyles Demona #1 yesterday at my local store which was supposed to be out in May.
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My understanding is that Ad Populum has nothing to do with the liquidation of consigned products. There are essentially two Diamond entities. "Old" Diamond (or the 'debtor' in the bankruptcy) is trying to sell off the consigned products in their old warehouse to pay off the loan the received from Chase during the bankruptcy. "New" Diamond is the company now owned by Ad Populum. New Diamond has certainly had issues so far and taken actions that suck, like firing everyone at DST, but they aren't responsible for all the shenanigans that are occurring or proposed. Maybe New Diamond is restricted by lots of bankruptcy loose ends still needing to be addressed, and it will look like a competent company in a few more months. Or Ad Populum will let it continue to die to somehow profit from that.

I could be wrong about things. My understanding is based on comments from other more knowledgeable folks on Bleeding Cool articles. I think some of the Bleeding Cool articles weren't clear about which Diamond entity is taking which action. More recent articles do a better job of clarifying and distinguishing the two.
 
Apparently, the SDCC map still shows booths for DST and Diamond. I wonder what will be at those booth locations. I guess we'll find out in less than a week. If anyone here is going, please let us know what is at booths #2607 and #2401.

www.comicsbeat.com

SDCC '25: Diamond and The Mystery of Booth 2401

Both Diamond Comic Distributors and Diamond Select Toys are still listed as exhibitors at SDCC this year, but what will be in their space?
www.comicsbeat.com www.comicsbeat.com
 
Would be really funny if it ended up being empty space! There’s nowhere to move on the floor so a couple of big empty spots would actually be really nice
:LOL:
 
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