Sales and acquisitions within the international AudioNova network
Retail
In early February 2016, Bloomberg business reported on rumors that claimed the investment fund that owns AudioNova, HAL Trust, was considering selling the retail network. However, sales of centers along with various acquisitions by the AudioNova group have recently taken place across Europe.
These structural changes look less like a sell-off than a strategic repositioning of the AudioNova brand on the various European markets, particularly in Italy.
More specifically, AudioNova has acquired 72 centers from Audium, belonging to Sonova, in Italy. “Through this operation, we have become the second biggest operator on the Italian market with 128 centers [editor’s note: behind Amplifon]. This means we can expect enormous potential in terms of organic growth, new openings, and acquisitions in the future,” management said. “Also, 51 Audilab centers in Switzerland [editor’s note: AudioNova group] have been sold to William Demant, 28 GEERS centers in Hungary to Sonova, and two Beltone centers in Spain to Amplifon. Following these transactions, AudioNova is now present in eight European countries compared to eleven until now.”
Sonova management, for their part, are very pleased with the purchase of the Hungarian centers. “This transaction is part of a strategy that consists in concentrating our sales activity on certain key countries,” says Michael Isaac, Director of press relations at Sonova. “We were already present in Hungary with about fifty centers and we thought this was a good opportunity to strengthen our presence in this market. Today, this acquisition makes us the leader on the Hungarian market.”
In France, where the network has 65 centers and seven corners as of January 1, 2015, selling AudioNova centers is not on the cards. Quite the contrary. In the country, the group has “an ambitious revitalization strategy for its development,” that is based on a “highly qualitative” approach. The group is aiming to become “a major player on the French market,” said Fabien Auberger, Director of Operations at AudioNova France.
Read more about AudioNova’s acquisitions on the Italian market on our Italian Audio Infos website (in Italian).
Source: Audio Infos France