D&M Holdings Buys Allen & Heath

Posted on Apr 2, 2008

D&M Holdings Continues Its Buying Spree – Acquires Allen & Heath

D&M Holdings Inc. has aquired Allen & Heath Holdings Limited of Penryn, Cornwall, England. Allen & Heath is a manufacturer of audio mixing consoles for professional sound engineers, live sound installations and DJs. The terms of the transaction will not be disclosed.

D&M Holdings Inc. provides worldwide management and distribution platforms for consumer, automotive, commercial and professional audio and video businesses including Denon, Marantz, McIntosh Laboratory, Boston Acoustics, Snell Acoustics, Escient, Denon DJ, Calrec Audio, D&M Professional and D&M Premium Sound Solutions. The acquisition will be accretive to earnings per share in Fiscal Year 2008, so we may be able to get a good idea of what D&M paid for the UK concern.

Founded in 1969, Allen & Heath supplies digital and analog consoles through a global sales force to a network of distributors in more than 80 countries. The company operates from its Cornwall England manufacturing facility and has more than 150 employees in R&D, sales, marketing, manufacturing and administrative functions. The Company will continue to be led by Glenn Rogers and its current management team.

“We’re adding another dimension to our position in the professional audio marketplace with this acquisition,” said Evans. “Allen & Heath is a strong brand in the professional live sound performance market and well suited to benefit from the D&M business platform. Like our other premium brands, Allen & Heath can continue to focus on innovation while D&M provides expanded global market reach and other support. We also see useful tie-ins with Calrec, our live-to-air broadcast console brand, and Denon DJ.”

The Future: D&M is becoming a force to be reckoned with thanks to their second major acquisition in less than a year (see story on Calrec… —Ed.). It will be interesting to see what synergy develops between Denon’s somewhat stagnant DJ branch and Allen & Heath’s innovative DJ division…rolling Denon’s CD offerings up underneath the Allen & Heath moniker after some solid Andy Rigby-Jones input would be a good start…