04 l July 2013


www.psneurope.com news EUROPE


Allen & Heath sold to private equity firm


Cornwall mixer manufacturer leaves D&M fold for new London investment house Electra Partners, writes Dave Robinson


PRIVATE EQUITY firm Electra Partners has acquired mixing console manufacturer Allen & Heath from D&M Holdings in a deal worth £43m. The equity and debt for this transaction were provided by Electra Private Equity and Allen & Heath’s management. Founded in 1969, Cornwall- based Allen & Heath designs and manufactures audio mixing consoles for the live sound, DJ and installation markets. It became part of D&M Holdings, whose portfolio includes Denon, Marantz and Calrec, in April 2008. Electra Partners is a London- based private equity fund manager of some 30 years’ standing with a large portfolio which includes investments in


UNITED KINGDOM Outline inks new UK distribution deal with CUK


Italian manufacturer ends longstanding arrangement with Outline UK operation as it seeks to expand worldwide partnerships, finds Dave Robinson


OUTLINE SRL, the Italian professional loudspeaker systems manufacturer, has appointed CUK Audio as its distribution partner for the UK. “This year, 2013, is our 40th


anniversary and our business is expanding globally,” says sales director Chris Hinds. “To that ends we are continually refining and expanding our worldwide partnerships. Bringing CUK


GTO C-12 line array element


Cables has expanded the company’s live sound offering. This led managing director Stuart Thomson to create CUK Live, a new division dedicated to serving the live sound and concert rental markets. “With CUK Live being


on board as


our UK partner is part of this on-going process, and we’re fortunate to have found a company of this calibre to represent our products here.” Concerning Outline’s outgoing UK representative Peter Barnard, Hinds says: “Peter has done sterling work in helping to develop Outline’s presence in the UK, and he has our gratitude and respect. Our move to CUK is a natural development of the brand and its representation here.”


Barnard tells PSNEurope: “The last


15 years have been very enjoyable and I wish Outline all the best in its future ventures. I hope the brand will continue to flourish worldwide.” Whilst CUK Audio’s


portfolio has given it a prominent position in the UK’s installation and AV markets, recent additions including Powersoft, Cadac and Cordial


clearly focussed on the needs of the live market, it became clear that we needed a credible loudspeaker offering for the sector,” says Thomson. “We’d been looking for some


time now, but frankly what we found were numerous loudspeaker manufacturers producing similar product lines with little differentiation between them.” However, Thomson says,


from his first meeting with Outline “it was apparent that the brand, the people, the technologies and the


GLD-112 desk launched at InfoComm last month


Glenn Rogers says the new investment will “support and expand our growing range of digital products”


“Subsequent investigations as part of their due diligence


the


healthcare, packaging,


engineering and transport sectors. This is the fourth investment the company has announced this year. A+H Managing director Glenn Rogers says: “The heart of the story is the planned expansion of R&D in Cornwall, which will support and expand our growing range of digital products, as well as allow us to consider new opportunities.”


The launch


of digital consoles such as iLive, GLD and Qu-16, which have been instrumental in Allen & Heath’s current success – 3,500 GLD mixers have been sold to date – first attracted Electra into making the investment, says Rogers.


revealed the strong position of the brand and the loyalty of its customers in our market areas, which helped cement the deal.” Charles Elkington, investment partner at Electra, added: “Allen & Heath is a leader in [its] market, with an excellent track record of year-on-year growth. We believe that the company has a bright future and we will be looking to grow the business through further investment in product development, marketing and distribution, and through acquisition.”


Malcolm Miller joins the


existing management team as chairman. Miller has a wealth of experience in branded businesses including his involvement with speaker company Monitor Audio as a director and as chairman of Tunstall (Healthcare) and other senior roles at Sega and Amstrad. At InfoComm in Florida last month, Allen & Heath launched the GLD-112 digital mixer, the fourth generation of its WZ MixWizard range, and a firmware update for the entire GLD mixing system. n www.allen-heath.com


attitude were a very good fit with our own approach to the business”. “It genuinely offered something different and of course we’ve watched Outline grow internationally in recent years, which tells its own story,” he says. This growth in profile


follows the 2011 launch of the GTO line array system, which has received critical acclaim from customers old and new. The GTO C-12, a 20% more compact version of the system, debuted at Prolight + Sound in March. “The addition of Outline complements a strong brand line-up for the touring markets for us, and consequently we are seeking to add a new member to the CUK Live team, whose brief will be to deliver the same standards of commitment and quality as we have achieved elsewhere,” concludes Thomson. n www.cuk-audio.com www.outlinearray.com


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