The Finnish group has agreed to purchase Outdoor Innovations LLC of Tulsa, Oklahoma, an American firm that sells fishing lures under the Terminator brand, including the brand, inventories, patents and some other assets. Rapala VMC Group, was particularly interested in its patented titanium wire technology, which it plans to apply to other products in its own range.
The U.S. company was founded in 1996 by a dentist and former marketing manager who is credited with pioneering the use of titanium spinner bait lures. Rapala, which sells its own lures in 140 countries, intends to market the Terminator line through its own global sales network. Outdoor Innovations was selling its high-tech lures mostly in the USA, generating annual revenues of only about $2 million.
Contrary to certain reports, Rapala is not acquiring Outdoor Innovations’ manufacturing subsidiary in Mexico, Horizon Lure Co.. The production will be shifted to the Finnish group’s own manufacturing facility in Shenzhen, China. The Finnish company gets its products made also in Finland, Ireland, Estonia and France.
Rapala claims the leadership globally in the area of fishing lures, with a market share of 25-30 percent in the USA, which is its major market. It began with plastic and other soft lures, but it has been investing more and more into metal lures lately. It recently bought another American manufacturer of metal lures, Luhr Jensen, and moved its production to China last September after closing its U.S. factory in June.
Lures remain the biggest single product category for this big company, which expected to end up the year 2006 with global sales of more than €220 million. In the first nine months of 2006, where its total revenues reached €177.4 million, lures generated revenues of €56.9 million at Rapala, up from €51.6 million in the same period one year earlier.
