Acushnet (Titleist, Scotty Cameron, Pinnacle, FootJoy) For Sale?

[iacas]

http://www.titleist.com/teamtitleist...t-company.aspx

Source: Acushnet
Acushnet Company today announced that the Board of Directors of its parent company, Fortune Brands, has approved in principle a separation of Fortune Brand’s three businesses in order to maximize long-term value for shareholders. This plan would result in: the continuation of Fortune Brands as an independent, publicly-traded spirits company; the tax-free spin-off to shareholders of the home and security business into an independent, publicly-traded company; and the sale or tax-free spinoff of the Acushnet Company.

[Stretch]

It's not a particularly good sign that they're making the spinoff public before having a buyer on the line. That would normally mean it's already been shopped around to the obvious strategics and LBO shops and they've all taken a pass. Which would make you wonder what Acushnet's numbers really look like.

Certainly also possible that Ackman and Pershing forced their hand on the announcement and a managed sale process is already underway. I can think of at least two Massachusetts-based private equity funds whose partners would probably enjoy owning Titleist almost as much as having a piece of the Red Sox.

[i-Guy]

Yes you can read a lot into the press release and I think it is interesting how Wally says "“Whether the Acushnet Company is sold to a new owner or becomes an independent publicly-traded company"...can anyone say Acushnet Stock for sale???

[iacas]

It's not a particularly good sign that they're making the spinoff public before having a buyer on the line. That would normally mean it's already been shopped around to the obvious strategics and LBO shops and they've all taken a pass. Which would make you wonder what Acushnet's numbers really look like.

I don't think you can read into that. I'm not an investment banker and I don't even know enough to know if the type of person who would know about this stuff is called an investment banker, but it's been in the news since Ackman's comments, and the company clearly wasn't shopped before then. All they're saying now is "we don't know what the future holds, but we're exploring options."

I do find the logic that an existing golf company can't buy Acushnet makes sense. So either another conglomerate type will buy them, or someone with a bunch of money will buy it and run it separately. As someone else said, maybe Wally Uihlein will find backers and buy the company himself. We don't know, but we'll see in a year or so.

[Saig55]

What if we pooled our money.  It could be owned by "SAND TRAP ENTERPRISES"

I'll throw a hundred in.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Saig55

What if we pooled our money.  It could be owned by "SAND TRAP ENTERPRISES"

I'll throw a hundred in.

That gets us, what, halfway there?

[Quinn07]

Originally Posted by Saig55

What if we pooled our money.  It could be owned by "SAND TRAP ENTERPRISES"

I'll throw a hundred in.

I will throw in 50!

[canadianpro]

I'll throw in $75....er.....$75 Canadian...eh?

[Clambake]

Not bad!  Saig55 is in for a $100 million, Quin is in for 50 million, and Canadianpro is in for 75 million (even if it is Canadian).     With $225M committed so far, we're getting closer.   What the hell, count me in for another hundred million as well.    I may have to sell one of my Gulfstreams to help cover the cost, but it would be worth it to get unlimited access to the Titleist Fitting Center and Scotty's putter labs.

[WUTiger]

Originally Posted by clubchamp

I would bet an asian company would take first dibs at titleist. I just don't see callaway or nike having the need to buy titleist at the moment.

Nike, and especially Callaway, might trigger antitrust lawsuits if they tried to buy Acushnet/Titleist. Depends on how much of golf market

{ Callaway + Acushnet }  would control.

[Saig55]

I wasn't able to get on the internet this weekend and now I see we're on the move raising money.  Yeehawwwww.  What do you think, a bake sale or something?  maybe sale our old putters, I've got a stack of them in a corner.

Let's see....25 putters at 25 a piece, carry the one  add a naught....I don't think I can get there!!

[clubchamp]

Under Armour would have to get a pretty good deal to be able to buy titleist and Ralph Lauren doesn't have the money to make that kind of deal. There is probably a couple of private equity firms in the U.S. that would consider it but I still think a foreign company/equity firm gets the deal done.

[Ben]

I heard a little bit about this when I was at the Chevron World Challenge. I heard the major obstacle with anyone buying any portion was that players would need to be paid for the contracts to play whatever they were playing. That kinda made sense, right? I guess not really, but I'm a little drunk right now.