Negotiations are understood to be nearing completion for HEAD Group to purchase the Aqualung Group from asset-management company Barings.
The US-Austrian HEAD owns dive-equipment manufacturers Mares and rEVO and training agency SSI among a number of other sporting goods brands.
Aqualung’s CEO Michel Abaza and his team are understood to have been hosting HEAD and Mares management at their Sophia Antipolis base in the south of France this week and have, according to industry sources, agreed a contract in principle.
Also read: Aqualung confirms HEAD friendly-takeover talks
Aqualung had reportedly been continuing to struggle with cash-flow problems that affected payments to suppliers and limited the availability of products and parts for customers.
The situation has put pressure on staff, who claim that successive takeovers by Montagu and Barings over the past nine years have failed to yield the cash injections deemed necessary to allow the ailing business to grow.
“We have been struggling for a very long time and HEAD can fix a lot of these problems,” an Aqualung employee told Divernet. “We are excited that with HEAD we will have the money to pay to get inventory.
“Last week we had to tell our customers we could not supply them with many items, as we do not have the money to pay suppliers. Many customers are quite angry about it, so hopefully this will stop now and we can get back to protecting our customers.”
Company origins
Aqualung is the oldest manufacturing name associated with scuba, reflecting the ground-breaking underwater breathing equipment developed by French divers Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan in the 1940s. HEAD’s own development was based on an innovative metal-composite ski design, with which it emerged as a winter-sports equipment company in 1950.
Private equity firm Montagu acquired Aqualung from Air Liquide in 2016 and Barings became part of a lending group set up to provide financial support to the debt-laden manufacturer.
But by 2022 a French court had given Aqualung a deadline to sort out its continuing operational and financial difficulties. Barings took ownership towards the end of 2023, as reported on Divernet, with promises of “significant capital evolution” to enable the company’s ambitious Horizon 2027 expansion project.
This, it said, would inject fresh impetus into sales, but the situation was not helped by the uneven recovery of the overall scuba diving-equipment market following the Covid pandemic.
Future plans
Last year Aqualung closed its California and Hawaii facilities, transferred its US distribution office to the East Coast, closed its Italian Technisub facility and shed its US Divers and Stohlquist brands. Barings had been widely expected to move to recoup its investment by selling the company.
It is not yet known whether Aqualung, its subsidiary brands Apeks, swimwear arm Aquasphere and its Military & Professional division will continue independently or be subject to a restructuring programme within HEAD. The two groups have yet to respond to a request for further information but official announcement of a deal is expected soon.
Also on Divernet: Barings set to acquire Aqualung Group, Selling US Divers latest step in Aqualung revamp, APEKS DSX: The perfect companion for technical divers
