Zalman files for bankruptcy :(

[ubersonic]

Zalman Tech, a legendary maker of cooling solutions and other devices, has filed for bankruptcy. The company had to file for insolvency protection in South Korea because its parent company Moneual took loans it could not eventually repay

http://www.kitguru.net/components/cooling/anton-shilov/zalman-tech-files-for-bankruptcy/


I am genuinely sad to hear this, I have a lot of fond memories of building/customizing systems in the 90's/2000's using Zalman parts, hell the are a couple of reserators staring at me from a shelf right now. Feels like part of history just died

 

[spoffle]

Oh dear, the feels

 

[OhEsEcks]

And I just bought an MS800 for a server tower...

 

[Draeger]

Does this mean my Z3 Plus will be worth a fortune in a few years time?

 

[Minstadave]

They lost the plot years ago so not really a surprise. Had both Reserators 1 and 2 - neither were that great but interesting at the time.

 

[Vitorek]

CNPS7000ALC... my first zalman product:/

 

[cheesyboy]

Such a shame

I bloody love the CNPS6000-AlCu I have on my Athlon XP machine (only replaced as my main PC at the end of last year!)

Zalman were revolutionary back then, with their "flower" coolers. I'm actually a bit sad

 

[Martini1991]

Unsurprising really.

 

[Steeps]

Zalman used to be my "go to" company for making systems quieter in the early 00's. Replacing the coolermaster H/S with a 60mm fan to a flower cooler with 92mm speed controlled fan on my old Athlon 1500+ was my first PC mod. Soon every Northbridge, graphics card and processor I had were all swapped out in the name of silence.

 

[Varsh]

To me this is quite a shock! Although I haven't used any Zalman parts for a while now, I used to always use their cooling solutions in my PCs for several years, my favourite being the CNPS7000C-Cu, and with a passive GPU my case was literally silent, that was until I started hearing ticking noises from my HDDs.

RIP Zalman.

 

[pastymuncher]

I can't say I am particularly surprised. They have gone downhill in recent years and their customer service is abysmal. Their recent cases are cheap and tacky looking, especially the just released Z11 Neo. They are a far cry from the high quality cases such as the Z machine GT-1000 that they used to make.

 

[TheVoice]

Still got one of their coolers in a box somewhere (CNPS-7700 AlCu or something? but like most people, I haven't bought any of their stuff in forever so it's not really a surprise.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

They lost the plot years ago so not really a surprise. Had both Reserators 1 and 2 - neither were that great but interesting at the time.

I can't say I am particularly surprised. They have gone downhill in recent years and their customer service is abysmal. Their recent cases are cheap and tacky looking, especially the just released Z11 Neo. They are a far cry from the high quality cases such as the Z machine GT-1000 that they used to make.

Read the article:

In 2011 around 60 per cent stake in Zalman Tech was purchased by Moneual, a maker of consumer electronics from South Korea that sells robotic vacuum cleaners in the U.S. Unfortunately, the company used Zalman’s reputation and successful track-record to falsify its export data and illegally obtain credits from various South Korean banks under guarantees issued by the Korea Trade Insurance Corp. (K-Sure), reports the Korea Times. K-Sure issued the guarantees backed by the export records, shipping documents and bank statements.

Moneual’s debts total 3.2 trillion won ($2.98 billion). The company began insolvency procedures in October because it failed to pay a part of the debt.

This is nothing to do with Zalman itself but its parent company taking on loans for its other businesses which they could not pay.

 

[Flying_Hellfish]

Just saw this on bittech too. The flower coolers were very fancy for the time!

 

[Minstadave]

Read the article:

This is nothing to do with Zalman itself but its parent company taking on loans for its other businesses which they could not pay.

Doesn't take away from the fact that Zalman haven't made anything decent for years and had lost their way.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

They lost the plot years ago so not really a surprise. Had both Reserators 1 and 2 - neither were that great but interesting at the time.

In 2011 around 60 per cent stake in Zalman Tech was purchased by Moneual, a maker of consumer electronics from South Korea that sells robotic vacuum cleaners in the U.S. Unfortunately, the company used Zalman’s reputation and successful track-record to falsify its export data and illegally obtain credits from various South Korean banks under guarantees issued by the Korea Trade Insurance Corp. (K-Sure), reports the Korea Times. K-Sure issued the guarantees backed by the export records, shipping documents and bank statements.

Moneual’s debts total 3.2 trillion won ($2.98 billion). The company began insolvency procedures in October because it failed to pay a part of the debt.

Doesn't take away from the fact that Zalman haven't made anything decent for years and had lost their way.

There is actually no evidence to show that Zalman were in any financial difficulty though.

OTH,every news outlet is indicating it was due to the parent company taking out loans to fund things like vacuum cleaners and so on.

Edit!!

The capital increases created from acquiring Zalman Tech [in 2011] were spent on running Moneual.

So Zalman was profitable.

You didn't read the article and jumped to conclusions.

There is no reason why they wouldn't have been profitable even if they were not so "enthusiast" focused.

 

[Minstadave]

I said nothing about profitability I think you're pushing your analysis well into the realms of pedantry.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

They lost the plot years ago so not really a surprise. Had both Reserators 1 and 2 - neither were that great but interesting at the time.

The capital increases created from acquiring Zalman Tech [in 2011] were spent on running Moneual.

In 2011 around 60 per cent stake in Zalman Tech was purchased by Moneual, a maker of consumer electronics from South Korea that sells robotic vacuum cleaners in the U.S. Unfortunately, the company used Zalman’s reputation and successful track-record to falsify its export data and illegally obtain credits from various South Korean banks

I said nothing about profitability I think you're pushing your analysis well into the realms of pedantry.

You said you were not surprised they were going bankrupt(which is a direct implication of profitability otherwise why mention it?) and it seems that your statement was based on not even reading the OP. You have just dug yourself into a hole now,and are trying to deflect from your original statement instead of actually admitting you never even bothered to actually read the article.

The entire company is going bankrupt include subsidiaries like Zalman. Just because a company does not cater as much to enthusiasts has no bearing on whether it is successful or not. If anything their case and PSU lines were reasonably popular from what I gather especially in the US and Asian markets which are huge last time I checked.

Have the last word if you want to.

 

[Zefan]

Can confirm a hsf upgrade on my old GeForce 6800gt allowed me to raise the level of abuse I subjected it to to reach new heights.

RIP dat Zal man.

 

[Draeger]

I can't say I am particularly surprised. They have gone downhill in recent years and their customer service is abysmal. Their recent cases are cheap and tacky looking

Maybe, but I bought a Zalman Plus 3 from OcUK earlier this year and its a fantastic little case. Well screwed together and designed IMO. Bought it on the strength of the online reviews I read on it which praised it highly.