Liquidlogic and Legacy Paddlesports have completed their previously-announced merger. The close comes after months of discussion among the owners and their retailers. The business will now headquarter at the Legacy Paddlesports plant in Greensboro, NC, although Liquidlogic R&D and Customer service will remain in Flat Rock, NC.
Woody Callaway, Liquidlogic brand manager, told BOSS that Liquidlogic had problems in the past keeping production in line with its strong orders, but the merger is already helping the process. “The shift has been incredibly energizing,” noted Callaway. “Were catching up, and are now able to fill and ship orders confidently.
In addition, we have access to additional resources, from planning and production to marketing. The meshing of our design teams requires work, for sure
but we are having fun like we have not experienced in a while, and our dealers and consumers are going to benefit from our renewed enthusiasm.”
“We've got a lot of changes that will happen in August that we'll be showing at Summer OR,” added Andy Zimmerman, president and CEO of Legacy Paddlesports, whose brands include Heritage, Native and Watertrail. “I guess the best word for what we're doing is 'reconstituted.' We've got a huge R&D effort going and we're going to change some looks and add a lot of models. And we'll have a rebranding of LiquidLogic that will happen at OR.”
When the deal was first announced, Bill Medlin, EVP of Legacy Paddlesports and former CEO of Confluence told BOSS, “The LiquidLogic whitewater piece was a nice counterpart to our existing business… Now we have a full array to offer our specialty retail dealers. The Whitewater business is also a little bit different seasonally, so it balanced out the manufacturing over the course of the year. On top of that there are a half dozen folks at each company who are really good friends, so its really some friends joining forces and making a good business decision.”
