Hilco Consumer Capital, LLC has partnered with Crystal Capital to
acquire Tag Golf, which includes Tommy Armour, Ram, TearDrop and Zebra
brands from Huffy Corporation. Terms of the purchase were not
disclosed, but Jamie Salter, CEO of Hilco Consumer Capital, spoke in an
exclusive interview with Sports Executive Weekly about his reunion with
Tag Golf after previously running the business with Gen-X Sports and
his plans for the group of brands going forward.
“I believe that [Tommy Armour and Ram] were iconic brands the first
time that we bought them and I believe that they are still. We
have a bit of a different strategy this time than we did the last
time. Last time when we bought them, we ran a traditional golf
business, hired reps, hired a management team and went out and marketed
the brand and sold to various different retailers. We did
phenomenal. We had the company doing just shy of $50 million
wholesale, $100 million at retail. That was strictly hardgoods,
no softgoods.
“Now, fast forward almost seven years later, we have a new strategy
which is to create a licensed brand strategy and Tommy Armour and Ram
are the first of many acquisitions that we are going to do on our new
sports licensing platform. Then, we will take these brands and we
will license them to various different retailers around the world.”
Utilizing this brands direct approach, a strategy in which retailers
like Target, Kohls and Dicks Sporting Goods have all seen success,
Salter sees tremendous growth potential for the business. “[Tag Golf
is] doing about $50 million at retail. We project $125 million in
retail revenues for 08. We think that that number will go from
about $125 million retail sales and grow approximately 25% for the
first five years. Weve already got fully baked in 15% with the various
deals we see signing over the next few weeks. So basically we need to
pick up another 10% with new business.”
The Tag Golf business will be run as part of Hilcos Consumer Capitals
Brands division, which also runs the Halston and Carribean Joe brands.
