Last week saw the largest brand acquisition in the history of the outdoor sports industry when Jarden bought K2 Inc. for $1.2 BILLION.
This dwarfs other recent purchases involving many of the same brands.
Jarden Inc, which owns such household brands as Foodsaver and Rival decided they liked the sporting goods business.
This same single company now owns Penn, Berkley, Fenwick, Abu-Garcia, Mitchell, Stren, Spiderwire, Shakespeare, Pflueger, All-Star rods, Contender rods, X-Tools, Hodgeman, Stearns, SOS-penders, and Mad-Dog fishing brands, along with the Coleman and Marmot camping/outdoor brands and over a dozen others like K2 Skis, Rawlings baseball and more.
No word as of yet as to how they will organize all the companies, or what if any other changes will take place.

They couldn't make the Charkbait acquisition happen - Mark was the only hold out.

Wow big news - as with any buyout - the question is how much will change with these brands - same construction, design, direction, etc...

Now that Cabo's been sold - boat brokers have told me that many potential buyers are a bit concerned about the changes. Same holds true when Jack Cole was bought out of Skipjack - there's a premium paid for boats "he" made.

i heard the fishing product will stay the same in use of the same material, designs, worlmanship, etc. cant speak about the others.

Part of the story

Jarden Buys Reel Maker Pure Fishing for $400 Million


Jarden Corp., the maker of Coleman camping gear, bought closely held Pure Fishing Inc. for $400 million to boost revenue at its slowest-growing unit.


Pure Fishing was started 70 years ago in Spirit Lake, Iowa, by a teenager who sold lures made with hair from Stubby the family dog. It now sells rods and reels under the Abu Garcia and Berkley brands and Trilene fishing line in 77 countries. Sales in 2006 exceeded $250 million, Jarden said today in a statement.



Berkley Bedell started Berkley Fly Co. in 1937 at age 16 with $50 earned delivering newspapers. He began tying fly-fishing lures in his bedroom, and within a few years, moved operations to his parents' basement and then to space above a grocery store.



By the 1970s, Bedell was selling fishing rods and Trilene line and expanded internationally. He served as a U.S. congressman from Iowa from 1975 to 1987.


Berkley & Co. was renamed Pure Fishing in 1998 to reflect acquisitions including the Stren and Spider brands. Tom Bedell, Berkley's son, is Pure Fishing's chairman.


Jarden also makes Mr. Coffee, Sunbeam and Oster brand kitchen appliances. It added outdoor gear including Coleman in January 2005 by buying American Household Inc. for $745.6 million.

Amazing stuff going on in terms of acquisitions over the past couple years. It's becoming big business for the larger names in the industry. Hopefully, resources will flow and help keep innovations coming to us.

I enjoyed reading about the humble beginnings of these firms. A kid with a dog that sheds...maybe our kid can take over picking up the darg hair and turn it into something useful? Hmm, maybe Nadiya can run with this one, too. She might not mind that I don't brush the darg too often if she saw a silver lining in all the fuzz that accululates. At this point she's inclined to give it the same haircut that she gives me - that leaves nutt'n but "kaluchi" (Russian for scratchy wiskers).