Acushnet Acquires Premium Golf-Apparel Company KJUS

Acushnet, the parent company of the Titleist and FootJoy golf brands, announced last night that it acquired KJUS, a Swiss-based, high-performance ski and golf-apparel maker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by KJUS (@kjus) on Apr 11, 2019 at 7:02am PDT

Chances are you’re probably not familiar with KJUS though, despite the fact that they’ve been around since 2000. Well, as I briefly mentioned above, KJUS is a European company that has recently started to permeate the US marketplace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by KJUS (@kjus) on Jul 3, 2019 at 7:02am PDT

KJUS co-founder, Lasse Kjus, commented on KJUS’ decision to enter the golf marketplace, stating:  “There are a lot of brands in the golf space, but we’ve been uncompromising about our commitment to producing highly technical, performance golf wear. We haven’t tried to do mass market. We’ve stayed true to our heritage and our commitment to creating innovative, quality products and that has served us well.”

Unsurprisingly, KJUS’ commitment to low-volume, high quality products have often resulted in comparisons being made to another premium quality, European golf apparel company: Galvin Green.

As a result, KJUS seems like a natural fit with Titleist and FootJoy’s commitment to premium, high quality products for golfers. David Maher, President and CEO of Acushnet Holdings Corp., commented on the acquisition:

“We have been impressed by KJUS’s success in golf apparel and are extremely excited to bring KJUS into the Acushnet family. We see many similarities in our roots, with both our founders having turned their personal passions for a sport into a vision of product and performance excellence. This shared commitment to innovative, high-quality and performance-driven products lines up squarely with our company’s existing focus on the dedicated golfer. We believe KJUS’s premium positioning in the ski and golf markets provides significant opportunities as we work with current KJUS management to maximize the brand’s potential.”

According to the announcement, Acushnet expect KJUS’s operations to continue to run from its global and North American headquarters in Hünenberg, Switzerland and Boulder, Colorado.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by KJUS (@kjus) on Jul 4, 2019 at 7:04am PDT

While it’ll certainly take a few months before Acushnet fully integrates KJUS into its organization, it’ll be very interesting to see how Acushnet looks to build awareness and grow its newest apparel line here in the US.