Strategy in TECH...
On Thursday, Premium Audio Company (PAC), a division of Voxx, which itself is now part of Gentex Corp., today formally acknowledged what has long been rumored: that it has lost its licensing deal with Pioneer Corporation for the rights to the Pioneer and Elite brands. The announcement portrays the decision as a “mutual” one that concludes “a successful multi-year collaboration.”
A couple of interesting announcements this week from Premium Audio Company (PAC), the Voxx Int’l subsidiary that markets the company’s premier audio brands such as Klipsch, Onkyo, Integra, Jamo, Pioneer, Elite, and more. First up, Rob Standley gets a big promotion to President of Technology and Product, a big step up. Second, and I would say counter-intuitively, the company says it’s lowering prices on many of its “most popular and best-selling audio solutions.”
Citing the “current state of the global economies” and “ongoing supply chain issues” Voxx International (NASDAQ: VOXX) reported the results of their fiscal 2023, third quarter this week and it was a story of more of the same, perhaps intensifying, business challenges that they identified when the company announced its second-quarter results. All of its major business segments reported sales declines – dropping double-digit percentages – with overall sales dropping 25.4% year-over-year. But the company said profits increased on aggressive cost cutting.
On Monday, I received a note from Premium Audio Company regarding my post on the bankruptcy of Onkyo Home Entertainment Co. Ltd. In this note, the company sought to get the message across that the Onkyo bankruptcy has nothing to do with them and that the Onkyo brand lives on under the guidance of its new owner, Premium Audio Company, a subsidiary of VOXX International.
Voxx International has announced that they have finalized their agreement to partner with Sharp Corporation to acquire the Home Entertainment Division of Onkyo – news that Strata-gee readers knew about last week. The news comes as a result of Onkyo shareholders voting last Friday to approve the sale of the company to Voxx’s subsidiary known as the Premium Audio Company. Not much was new here on the Onkyo front, as we already told you about the deal only covering the Onkyo and Integra brands. However, we did learn some more interesting details on the company’s attempts relative to the Pioneer and Pioneer Elite brands.
Well after much coverage on the VOXX/Onkyo deal by Strata-gee, in which VOXX remained strangely silent, the company finally issued a press release today in which they acknowledged that they had signed an asset purchase agreement (APA) with Onkyo for $30.8 million. The deal remains subject to approval by Onkyo shareholders in a vote scheduled to take place on June 25, 2021.
This news was likely not a surprise to Strata-gee readers. But what was a surprise is that this purchase does NOT include the Pioneer and Pioneer Elite brands.
On Wednesday, at a specially convened meeting of the Board of Directors for Onkyo Home Entertainment Co. Ltd. (Onkyo), company directors formally voted to authorize the transfer of Onkyo’s home AV division to the partnership of VOXX, Intl. and Sharp Corporation, in a deal valued at $30.3 million. The transaction is pending shareholder approval. This development represents real progress on a deal that had appeared to be bogged down recently.
This week we learned that 11 Trading Company…part of Premium Audio Company…which itself is part of Voxx International (love those big corporate structures), has added the only remaining Onkyo brands – Teac & Esoteric – to their distribution line list. They did not include these brands in the original announcement of their agreement with Onkyo, but most people expected it to be added in time. With this new development we get a nice progression of the budding relationship between the companies – Voxx distributing Onkyo, Integra, Pioneer, Pioneer Elite, Teac & Esoteric – while Onkyo Corp. becomes the Klipsch distributor in Japan. Where could this be heading?
As part of an internal restructuring to accommodate their recent acquisition of the distribution rights to certain Onkyo brands, Voxx International Corporation announced this week that it has renamed the existing Klipsch Holding LLC to the rather generically named Premium Audio Company LLC. This is just the first change, as I’ve learned more announcements are just around the corner.
It appears that the other shoe is dropping in the wake of the failed acquisition of Onkyo Corporation’s branded A/V division by Sound United last month, as the company now says it will reduce its overhead by cutting jobs. This appears to be the first step in a major reorganization of the company, as it seeks to right-size the organization for the industry’s new, smaller, and more competitive environment in which electronics manufacturers find themselves.
