Pure Fishing Buys Stren Line

[RossT]

I came accross this today, thought many of you, including myself would be interested.

Berkley Buys Stren 2/11/2004
In June of last year, Pure Fishing -- which includes Berkley, SpiderWire, Fenwick, Abu-Garcia and numerous other brands -- sold a chunk of itself to raise capital for more acquisitions. Yesterday it announced the acquisition of Stren, a longtime rival of Berkley's Trilene line brands.

Pure Fishing majority owner Tom Bedell told The Sioux City (Iowa) Journal that Stren was a good match for Berkley. Stren has more than 700 SKUs of fishing lines amounting to about 95 percent of its sales, while Pure Fishing's sales are about 25 percent fishing line and 75 percent rods, reels and other tackle items, Bedell said. "Combining the Stren brand with our already-strong capabilities in product innovation will further advance the performance we can deliver to anglers."

Bedell didn't say how many jobs would be moved to Spirit Lake from Stren's Madison, N.C. headquarters. "We concluded the purchase just this weekend and have a transition team just now studying what manufacturing we want to move to Spirit Lake," he said, but added: "We are in the heart of the fishing tackle-buying season and need to get up to speed fast."

Stren was at one time owned by DuPont, but on Dec. 1, 1993 was sold along with Remington Arms Co. to RACI Acquisitions -- a company organized by the New York investment firm of Clayton, Dubilier and Rice -- for approximately $300 million.

[kslipsinker]

I work at the Gander Mountain in Lakeville, and was talking to one of their sales reps about this today. Pure Fishing has a lot of work to do to make this work for the upcoming fishing season.