Following news of Brunswick Corporation’s decision to sell its operation of nearly 100 US-based bowling centres and seek to divest itself of its tenpin bowling equipment manufacturing business by the end of this year, there is reassurance from its main competitor that the game is safe.
Brunswick accepted the out-of-the-blue £270m bid by major operator BowlmorAMF for its centres, it was announced this week. That led the Brunswick Board to adjust its horizon to concentrate purely on its marine and fitness products. It announced it would be open to offers for its bowling supply business.
Speaking of the bowling industry in general, Dustan McCoy, Brunswick chairman and CEO, said: “The industry has been evolving as centre counts decline and the customer mix shifts from predominantly league bowling to casual bowlers seeking an entertainment-oriented experience.
“For Brunswick to drive growth in this business it would take continual development of new entertainment concepts and significant additional investment to implement these new concepts at new properties or to convert existing centres. We believe directing investments into select portions of our core marine operations as well as our fitness business, provides better opportunities for greater returns. In 2013, the marine and fitness businesses together accounted for 92 per cent of Brunswick’s net revenues.”
The principal competitor for Brunswick on the international market is QubicaAMF. On Wednesday a statement from the company assured the industry of its commitment to the success of its customers and to the bowling business as a whole.
“QubicaAMF has revolutionised the bowling industry many times over with its product innovations beginning with the first mass-produced automatic pinspotter in 1946, the first automatic scoring system in 1976 and the first bowler entertainment system in 2003. QubicaAMF continues to demonstrate that it is ‘all in’ for this industry with the most recent series of product launches – developed ruing the deepest recession in modern times – including the Xli EDGE Pinspotter, BES X, still the world’s only bowler entertainment system, the EZ Touch Lane Machine; the Harmony Furniture Line, new energy-efficient ball return with exclusive safety features and a new masking system which debuted at Bowl Expo last month.”
“We see very big opportunities evolving in the bowling and entertainment industry and we are committed to continue to invest in the business,” said David Roys, CEO of QubicaAMF.
