Wall Street Journal has confirmed What has sailed about golf ether for a few days now: Laborator It is being sold at the L.Catterton private capital firm for $ 200 million.
You can present it under shocking, but not surprising.
It is shocking every time the owners of a brand with a loyal (and growing) fan base and an industry leadership sell their company. However, if you have read the tea tea correctly over the past two years, it is an act that was everything but inevitable.
For those who are willing to sound the kneeling of death because the lab is being sold at a private capital firm, some contexts are okay.
Lab Golf Sell: Details
Golf owner Lab Sam Hahn and his partner Bill Presse (inventor of Lie Balance) are selling controlling interest to their company in L. Catterton. With over $ 37 billion under management wealth, L. Catterton is the largest consumer -centered private capital firm in the world.
Hahn confirmed the sale last night on the Lab Rats Facebook page.
“We have followed a transaction of types for nearly two years now and we cannot be more excited about our new partners.” In the typical Hahn style, he calls people in L.Catteron, “Dop Af”.
“We knew that any existing OEM would have distributed the brand or dramatically change its principles and values,” he wrote. “We need more than financial support, but some real contribution and knowledge from the people who have received the Badass Global brands.”
This, in short, describes L. Catterton the way of functioning. It is a little different from what you think you know about private capital firms. It specializes in investing in possible medium and high market consumer brands, providing operational support and global expansion strategies for growing companies.
Laborator It suits this bill clearly. It sold about 130,000 putters in 2024 and is expected to triple that number in 2025.
Private capital “Willies”
Usually, when a company is sold to private capital, its fans become so gloomy that make Eeyore look like a bubble optimist.
“For many people, only ‘Pe’ listening can give you the wills,” Hahn said on Facebook. “After meeting with a dozen different firms over the past two years, I can fully understand why.
L. Catterton, he says, is different.
“They act the same way as us: we make zero concessions on quality, take care of your customers and the rest will take care of himself.”
Hahn also said there will be no significant changes in Laborator operations. It will stay in its current capacity before moving into a role of product and innovation as the company grows. He also says most of the production will remain at the company’s headquarters in Oregon.
Why was the sale of the laboratory unavoidable
Hahn Started Lab Golf in 2018 After purchasing the skeleton of Bill Presse’s almost bankrupt force company. After five years of slow, steady growth, Lab’s assets took a drastic turn upwards in August 2023, thanks to Lucas Glover. This is when Glover switched to a Mezzi Max Putter lab and went to his career: Six Top-6 ends in six starts, including back-back victories in the Wynham championship and championship FedEx St. Jude.
The presence of the laboratory had grown in the tournament, but Clark’s running opened floods that almost stifled staff at Oregon’s Lab.
“We were prepared as we could be,” Hahn Mygolfsky told at the time. “Of course, you can’t hire enough staff to accommodate 20,000 orders when you only made 5,000. You just have to catch and do your best.”
The big admission of the tournament and the winning blow of JJ SPAUN at this year’s US have increased the demand.
Hahn said on Facebook that he would talk to investors for the last two years, which would coincide with Glover’s hot flow. Without external investment, Laborator It was likely that it would not have been able to keep the growth growth that had passed the previous five years following. Getting the necessary funds will need to include a majority part of the majority in the company.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Even if you have “private equity Willies”, L. Catterton’s record shows that it is not a quick type of PE firm.
Its brands include heavy weights such as Birkenstock, Flexjet, Fever of Live Entertainment platform and Italian Etro fashion house. Nothing in its past suggests “burning and turning”.
Even the legacy of L. Catterton comes from long, classic brands. In 2016, she joined LVMH, one of the largest luxury goods in the world. Its initials stand for its three founding brands: Louis Vuitton, Met & Champagne and Hennessy Cognac. L. Catterton uses that relationship to collaborate on consumer knowledge, brand strategy, global expansion and operational efficiency.
So if you are prone, you can conclude that PE will destroy the lab while Hahn and Presse take their money and run. This is easy – and the lazy border – gets. It may prove to be correct, but to go there immediately without understanding the players involved, at best, is uninformed.
The other way to see this sale is that it is the logical and inevitable step in the life of a small business that is on the verge of overcoming its coverage. Lab has been a runaway train since Glover’s run two years ago. Almost overnight, she went from a wonders to the hottest paw in the game that now sits in third place in the Putter market.
This type of growth can damage a company unless it gets some kind of investment.
If we take Hahn with his word, and we have known him long enough to believe it as a straight shooter, this second takeover becomes more reasonable. In other words, if something like that did not happen, Lab was likely to have collapsed under the weight of its success.
office Lab Golf Sell for $ 200m first appeared in MygolfSSS.
