This can not be good: Hasbro is being investigated… for securities fraud. From the lawsuit:
- Hasbro’s relationship with Toys “R” Us was becoming increasingly important to Hasbro’s business, but Toys “R” Us was in far worse financial condition than was being publicly reported;
- Hasbro was experiencing significant undisclosed adverse sales issues in two key markets – the United Kingdom and Brazil – which were negatively impacting Hasbro’s efforts to grow sales in those markets; and
- as a result of foregoing, defendants’ statements about Hasbro’s business and prospects were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.
This sounds serious. Like insanely serious. If this is true, this is going to be a PR nightmare of epic proportions. This isn’t taking into account the idea of Hasbro having to pay fines or legal fees, which will only add to the mess.
I remember how bad things looked for Hasbro back in the 1990’s. We weren’t sure if the company was going to survive. Now we seem to be back in that same mindset twenty years later and following a frighteningly similar pattern, with Hasbro struggling after years of success.
I’ll go ahead and say this now: with the way things are going, I have my doubts that HasCon 2019 will even happen. If it does I will be very surprised.
Iacon East 