Private equity firm Electra Partners has today 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 PLC 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 the healthcare, packaging, engineering and transport sectors. This is the fourth investment the company has announced this year.
In a statement, Glenn Rogers, managing director at Allen & Heath (pictured), said: “We are very excited about working with Electra Partners and the opportunities it presents for the next phase of Allen & Heath’s growth. We have an excellent catalogue of existing products and a number of exciting prospects in development. We see opportunity for expansion into new areas and look forward to building Allen & Heath’s long-term future alongside Electra Partners.”
Charles Elkington, investment partner at Electra Partners, added: “Allen & Heath is a leader in a niche 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 work with Glenn and his team to grow the business through further investment in new product development, improved marketing and distribution, and through acquisition.”
At InfoComm in Florida earlier this month, Allen & Heath launched the GLD-112 digital mixer (a larger version of the GLD-80), the fourth generation of its successful WZ MixWizard range of compact mixers, and a firmware update for the entire GLD mixing system.
