Acushnet, bids please?

First topic message reminder :

Acushnet, a subsidiary of the fortune brands empire, sent out an offer memordum last month confirming that the company was indeed about to confirm rumours of a sale. The Aucushnet brands include; Titliest, Footjoyl, Scotty Cameron, Pinnacle and formally Cobra before they were sold to Puma last march.

This leaves possibly the most famous of all golf brands, Titliest, with a somewhat uncertain future. Strategic bids are expected to come from the other big players in the golf market, Adidas (taylormade) and Nike. What they would do with the Acushnet brands is unclear but would it be unrealistic to expect the pro v1 to be the prize asset they are after. Despite the best efforts of the other big players in the market titliest is the world leader in both brand status and quality when it comes to golf balls. Would this mean the end of the prov1 and the introduction of a Nike ball comprised of titliest patented technology?

Are there scenarios whereby a big firm like Nike would own the titliest brand and keep it with its current branding? I would think the likes of footjoy will remain as footjoy, at least aesthetically, as its more niche golfing product is at the heart of its success.

Another possibility is that Acushnet will be snapped up investors from private equity firms, In which case I would definitely expect all the Acushnet products that survive after the acquisition to remain as they are. For the health of choice available to golfing consumers this has to be the better option. Although, wherever the engineers end up I would hope they are able to continue the great work they currently produce.

Is it a worry for golfers that one of the great brands is up for sale or will this ensure the future of a golfing great?

ban_bam wrote:what is the correct one merc?!!

i've always used the good old scottish 'tight list'

That makes complete sense when in Chilly Jockoland (c) Jimmy Greaves

It is, of course, "Title ist"

Title ist as far as I'm concerned.

The Title being the thing that they win... and the ist being the suffix meaning those who won the title.

Titleist.

Also.. I think the VR TW blades were nasty. The original ones looks so elegant and simple and the latest ones are more or less identical to those with different grooves and graphics. Lovely

what about mizuno...any ideas?

Bam Bam

I believe some pronounce it "title ist"

The 33's were the best I think.

Although I do like the 68's I'm not too sure about them as a whole. They don't feel right off the face anymore.

are you with me then mac?!

interesting on the mizno's lj, do you think they've been applying their technogeeks to the jpx range to the detriment of the others?

nothing worse than [with a fake german accent] "teeet--lie-st"

not at all.

I think the MP33's felt so solid and good at impact. But the 32's which I was looking at when my 33's were stolen just never felt the same. They were so much more harsh at impact.

I think they still have great forgings... but they are using different chrome or something that makes them too harsh for me.

LJ could well be that its because the Mizzies were moved from the quality Japanese forges, to a lesser Chinese forge. Cheating on production costs by not 'double forging' is going to make the lesser forging feel, and react different. This seems to be a huge problem for most of the big boys, who try and cut costs to take a bigger margin.

Some real pedantic bar stewards on here merc

Title ist for pronounciation for me too - though I must admit I like boobie leist :P

Didn't realise they had done that. And I'm a bit surprised that I could feel it if that is the case.

Perhaps all that washing up in fairy liquid has given me soft hands after all.

So do any of the main street manufacturers now offer an iron using the highest possible forging standards?

OR do we have to go Muira for the real deal?

Where can I get a 1 iron? Preferably a Callway forged one.

They appear to be as rare as rocking horse Poopie.

Mac forging is simply taking a heated lump of metal and whacking it with something heavy until it bends into shape.

Nearly all irons which are listed as forged are produced this way. Form forging is slightly different however.

So they are all using the highest possible forging standards. But possibly not the same finishing standards. Which I think is seen in the chrome peeling off irons and the like.

LJ

There must be some variables like quality of steel or hand versus machine crafting?

I fail to believe any forge is the of the same quality.

metal is obviously different grades. But most forgings use a variant of carbon steel.

the hand forging method would give a lower quality as there are more human errors. And a drop forge is going to be better overall. Every forged iron (even form forged) will have a drop forging involved.

The finishing by hand and machine is another matter. And there will be tolerances involved. But I think that most of the primary companies will perform a hand-finishing.

The main difference will be in the finish.

ban_bam wrote:what is the correct one merc?!!

i've always used the good old scottish 'tight list'

Nah... Title..ist 8)

Just had a google around and discovered some very interesting stuff. Firstly it looks like the only clubs forged in Japan by the big boys are the very high end ones, used by tour pro's. Titlist do one, TM R7 can only be bought in Japan and the Ping Anser. Bridgestone puport to forge their high end clubs there and Adams high end do one set.

All the rest who are in japan are the boutique boys like Muira, Epon, Vega, Nakashima, KZG, Scratch (Then sent back to the states for personal hand grinding) Fourteen etc.

It seems the big boys have decided to use Taiwan and China for the bulk of the forged offerings, to save cost but lose out on quality. "The double forging process in Japan enables any anomolies within the steel to be nulified almost completeley, to ensure an equal feel throughout the whole of each club. Each head is as near as perfect as can be. The Japanese after all have the oldest forges in the world and have been world leaders way before we saw a wheel. Their knives are renowned and everyone knows about their swords''

A huge surprise was the major Japanese OEM (Endo) who moved out of their forge in favour of Taiwan? KZG use the old Mizuno foundry, which also does Matrix and Alpha. Apparently some golfers in the States are getting upset by seeing made in china stickers on the soles of the clubs they've gone to try, as they fully expected Japanese forgings (Not Chinese copies of Japanese clubs made under licence) So will the big boys suffer for this or will they just expect Joe Public to carry on buying their big name goods?

Another very strange thing I've just seen, is that any so-called japanese forgings that have lead weights in the sole, are all done in China.

Great stuff doc, always a joy to read well researched posts.

is there any reason to suspect that the firms who set up foundries in China are now offering lower quality?

Surely with their expertise the quality remains the same it is just that the labour costs are lower.

McLaren wrote:Great stuff doc, always a joy to read well researched posts.

is there any reason to suspect that the firms who set up foundries in China are now offering lower quality?

Surely with their expertise the quality remains the same it is just that the labour costs are lower.

Labour costs are much, much lower and of course they have no H&S or Environment agency to worry about. They don't care if a worker loses a finger or sludge from the foundry gushes into a river and poisons a village. generalisation I know, but fairly factual. When the big boys moved out of Japan it allowed those same japanese forges to concentrate on japanese golf technology. After all Endo who are the biggest japanese forge company still make a mint from everyone else. You can only assume that head japanese forgemasters will have been involved in setting up production with the Chinese, but also accept that the 2 races hate each other so the nip would have gone home quickly, leaving the Chinese guy in charge. Japanese golf clubs are expensive, and I read a quote from the head of Muira who refuses to name many players, who still to this day have his clubs in their bags. Woods used Muira when he was with titlist for a long while, Garcia, Ernie, Olozobal, and a few more who are in the public domain. So Muira have 3 major titles and countless other top tour wins to their name.

Margin made in Japan by the big boys 100%, margin made by the big boys coming out of China 2000% - wow, talk about paying through the nose for for a name

isn't a foundry more associated with casting?

Update on sale of Acushnet.

http://progolftalk.nbcsports.com/2011/05/06/report-adidas-blackstone-expected-to-bid-for-acushnet/

Anyone have any info on the bids?

The main bid is Callaway/Blackstone and thought to be in excess of $1b, but rumours that the whole thing could be sold piece meal, which could raise more than C/B bid. Footjoy is wanted on its own as is Titliest etc, and there lies the potential problem for Calloway.

The thinking is that Calloway who are showing flat sales worldwide couldn't raise all the cash, hence Blackstones involvement. But calloway are desperate as there are outstanding lawsuits pending going back to 2006, brought because of their ball technology. ProV1 have them wrapped up in patents and calloway allegedly copied and infringed ....... So who do you reckon wants just Titiest, and would want to damage Calloway?

Would be bad if Callaway and/or Adidas (i.e. TaylorMade) is able to buy anything of Acushnet. Surely there'd be some sort of anti-trust/competition issues here?

Harrison... very snobbish attitude you are taking there, making some big generalisations about nike / tm being cheap and tacky! obviously these brands are beneath you!

However, I believe they make some great products. the fact is they cater for a range of golfers and offer an appropriate choice, from traditional to edgy.

Personally I believe a sale to Private Equity to be the most likely outcome, which could be bad news for titleist. PE will always have one eye on its exit route and will want to maximise the cash flow in the short term. Depending on the PE house this could lead to destroying the brand for the sake of a few bucks... of course some PE houses would not do this. depends on the strength of management at acushnet and the objective of the vendors.

Actually, a sale to adidas or nike is probably the best way to retain the titliest quality... both these companies have a strong heritage in sport and take a long term view. They would probably support the brand by investing in R&D etc, with the expectation they would be able to use their own marketing / sales networks to increase sales.

I wouldn't mind if Titleist were to die out, they just don't have that "wow" factor. There are better and more innovative manufacturers out there, while there are certainly better balls to choose from.

sharrison01 wrote:LJ, obviously the links that you posted show that the likes of TM, Callaway, Nike and Ping can make nicer looking clubs as much as Mizuno and Titleist can make loud and cheap looking clubs. However, I think that all of your examples are anomalies for those brands.

For example, Ping, TM, Callaway and Nike will on a given year release 2-3 ugly game improvement irons and one set of nice looking traditional irons and this represents the market that they target whilst also offering their sponsored touring pro's an option that they can endorse.

Sharri:
I'm more than happy with my 'ugly' looking Ping G15s ta muchly. They have taken my handicap from 20 to 16.8 in the past 3 months, so I'm not complaining having won 2 medals and 2 stablefords. What is the point of someone off my handicap buying a set of MP63s just cos they look great only to find I get out there and can't hit a camel's @rse with a base fiddle! As I'm in the majority swath of club golfers you can see why so much emphasis is put on the game improvement aspect of irons and hybrids.

Mark my words - this is the first deal of many within the golf industry. It has been a well known fact for at least 6 months that Fortune Brands were putting Acushnet on the market.
Timing is interesting - 2 weeks ago yet another court in US threw out Callaway's patent challenges re the Pro V1. That problem now seems to have gone away.