Focal & Naim Audio to Merge

Attention to all Naim & Focal owners:
Good news and congratulation for both established audio companies in Europe.


Focal and Naim merge to create pan-European hi-fi business






19 Aug 2011

Focal and Naim are to merge to create a new pan-European hi-fi company with a combined turnover in excess of £48m.

A new company Focal & Co will own and manage Focal and Naim as
independent brands, retaining their own philosophies and product ranges,
but collaborating on research and development.

Focal & Co, owned by Jacques Mahul (founder and chairman), CM-CIC
(long-term shareholder in Focal) and the management teams of Focal and
Naim, will employ 325 people at its facilities in St-Etienne, France and
Salisbury, UK.

By bringing together the research and development teams of both
companies, Focal & Co will create "an industry-leading R&D
capability to propel the Naim and Focal brands to the next level".

Jacques Mahul says: "For future success, the key point is that there
is no future for a speaker or electronic company alone. Partnership and
collaboration are the way forward both in terms of investment and
R&D."

Paul Stephenson, managing director of Naim Audio, says: "It is a
merger of European minds. In Focal, we have found a partner which shares
our passion for music and will help us take Naim to the next level.

"We can achieve far more together than would have been possible
alone, yet at the same time we are able to retain everything that is
unique about Naim and everything that our customers love us for.

"We have some incredible developments in the pipeline and this
alliance will help us get those to market as quickly as possible."

A Naim spokesperson adds: "A key aspect of this merger is the joint
R&D opportunities it will give both companies – a crucial benefit as
the industry evolves."

The spokesperson confirmed that each company's product lines – and branding – will continue as before.

"You're not going to see joint branding on products," they said, also
stressing that it's "business as usual" for Naim's speaker ranges.




Extracted from : http://www.whathifi.com/news/focal-and-naim-merge-to-create-pan-european-hi-fi-business

When are you going to buy Focal?

Too expensive for peasant like me

I quoted someone's comment on the Naim bought out by Focal:

#Inevitable if you have perused company house accounts over the last
couple of years, as the owners / directors have been feeding their
pension pot like there is no tomorrow. And guess what the only asset is
that wont be transferred into the merged company, why what a surprise it
is Naims pension pot, and a separate company will be created or the
existing company retained just to manage it. So that is what the price
rises over the last years have been for. Really it is astonishing how
many thick sheep have bought into the bullshit over the decades.

Now
lets see what happens to Naim second hand prices, as that is the most
important thing for the sheep now to worry about. If they have any sense
they will sell them on before it becomes a flood on ebay. Perhaps Focal
will buy Linn next.

All this is inevitable, and you will find
the basic facts of a forced sale will be flowered up and bullshitted by
the marketing men being fed manipulated information by the accountants.

The bleating sheep who are saying this is a merger and Naim will stay
the same really have no understanding of the way business works. This
would not have happened unless the Naim directors / shareholders were
either forced into it, or wanted a way out with what is left of the
money. I will have a bet with anyone that within 3 years they are laying
off staff and closing the Salisbury factory. All the bullshit at the
moment is marketing whitewash to cover up the fact that this is a
directors exit strategy from a dying company in a dying industry, after
the fat has been bled off into the directors pension pot.#

You guess who?

Future Naim products shall cater for mass production and will lost its unique quality. Production line probably some where in asia .