[insane_dreamer]

It's not that being owned by a larger corp is inherently bad. Mountain Hardware is owned by Columbia, so is Prana, and all three are good quality and Columbia is a decent company by all accounts.

So it's what type of company owns it -- is it a PE play to extract maximum value for shareholders, or a lasting company building value for consumers?

[gensym]

Yeah, totally agree (though Prana changed the fabric of their excellent Stretch Zion pants for the worse a few years back).

Another company I really like is Mystery Ranch (for backpacks). They were purchased by Yeti and it remains to be seen whether their quality will drop to that of a "lifestyle brand".