rEvo Sold To Mares

[Tassi Devil Diver]

Just got an email from Paul Raymakers saying rEvo has been sold to Mares, see below.

After more than 10 years of creating, developing and growing rEvo, and knowing that none of my children will or can continue this business, I realized already some time ago that the only way to keep rEvo going, and even stronger growing than now, was to look for a partner that had common interests. A strong partner, that was already in the diving business, and had the strength and will to take this work further.

It took months of talking, negotiating, working out synergies, but in the end it became clear that we found the correct ‘modus vivendi’.

As a result, last week the deal was signed and rEvo changed ownership: rEvo BVBA has been acquired for 100% by MARES, one of the world’s leading diving manufacturers.

As you know, for a long time, Rebreathers have been a niche in the diving industry and were situated exclusively in the technical diving market. The objective for rEvo partnering up with MARES is to broaden the rebreather community by making rebreathers more accessible while maintaining the quality and performance levels.

This year, MARES released a product line called “Extended Range”, which is developed for recreational divers that want to extend their limits, for example by diving deeper and longer. Next to that, SSI, sister company of MARES, developed a complete range of entirely new open circuit technical training programs in answer to these needs.

In order to integrate the two businesses, rEvo will continue to develop and market the Rebreathers, and MARES will support the company with their research and development teams, manufacturing facilities and their worldwide distribution network.

For the coming years, I will keep managing rEvo, with strong focus on new product developments, and Pieter will keep taking care of the day to day business. As you can imagine, rEvo gets access to a range of new interesting opportunities and resources.

Both rEvo and MARES are driven by innovation and technology. I am convinced that this acquisition will strengthen rEvo’s products and service.

 

[The Chairman]

It will be interesting to see if this breaks the South Florida monopoly on reVo. So many of these units are being sold off by competent instructors in the area because they aren't allowed to teach the unit.

 

[Dsix36]

.............and the monopoly on the only US factory service center

 

[JonTNY]

Guys.....monopoly is a bit of a stretch ...........in reality we have a few savvy "Mom and Pop" business owners that negotiated exclusivity for a certain geographical areas. That's far from a monopoly in the derogatory sense of the word.

The sale though is interesting, Paul's a very smart and successful guy so I assumed something like this was coming at some point but Mares? I can't tell you the last time I thought about that particular equipment line. Maybe they simply offered the most money?

Mares is owned by these guys:

The HTM Sport GmbH and its brand TYROLIA® is part of the HTM group with HEAD Wintersports, HEAD Racketsports, Mares/Dacor (Dive sports) as well as Penn (balls)........all of this is under the HEAD Inc. company with revenue in excess of 375MM.

I suppose its about distribution and money but not necessarily in that order.

Cheers

 

[Pao]

Or maybe it is in line with Mares pushing towards the Rec-Tech market. They might have been the ones to approach rEvo. Perhaps they went "shopping" for a rebreather company and found rEvo and hence the surprising sale.

 

[Maxpcf]

Purely out of curiousity I wonder what rEvo was acquired for.

 

[The Chairman]

monopoly is a bit of a stretch

Not if you live in South Florida. Training should be open to ANY qualified instructor ANYWHERE. All it does is to force those instructors to teach other CCRs.

 

[boulderjohn]

Guys.....monopoly is a bit of a stretch ...........in reality we have a few savvy "Mom and Pop" business owners that negotiated exclusivity for a certain geographical areas. That's far from a monopoly in the derogatory sense of the word.

My understanding from talking to Paul is that the entire state of Florida, the third most populace state in the nation, is an example of a place where one savvy "Mom and Pop" business owner negotiated exclusivity for a certain geographical area. Is that correct? I was considering my own future as a potential rebreather instructor, living as I do in Colorado, and I found that I could get exclusive rights to that entire state. Furthermore, if my Colorado students came to me for instruction while I was RENTING my condominium in Florida, as I do each winter, there would be no problem. But if I BOUGHT that condominium, then, nope, I could not teach my Colorado students while we were in Florida. I would be infringing upon the territory of that mom and pop organization that has the rights to that state.

 

[The Chairman]

The irony of it all John, is that the "Mom and Pop" you're refering to was created do to monopolistic practices in regards to sorb. Their logo for years was the Middle Finger because he was so pissed at how he was being treated. He's become the very thing he hated.

 

[Tassi Devil Diver]

"Not if you live in South Florida. Training should be open to ANY qualified instructor ANYWHERE. All it does is to force those instructors to teach other CCRs."

Disagree with that one Net Doc, especially when it comes to Tec rebrather instructors. I think Paul had the right idea regarding his instructor policy, if more manufactures and training agencies adopted his policy the level of instructor competence would be maintained at much higher standard. At least with rEvo you were assured a quality instructor, making a Blue Grotto type incident even more unlikely.

Anyway all the best to Paul, it does insure that rEvo CCR will continue on after Paul with a big business behind it to back continued innovation. Hopefully the current high level of service from rEvo will be maintained.