As of Jan. 1, Klip America will be the new global licensee of Völkl’s racquet business. For nearly 10 years, the license was in the hands of the Swiss-based Völkl Tennis GmbH, a company controlled on a 50-50 basis by Boris Becker, the tennis champion, and Hans Dieter Cleven, a former executive of Metro and later the strongman behind Völkl International until it was acquired, together with Marker, by K2.
Klip has been the distributor of Völkl in the USA since 2003, when the regional operations on the other side of the Atlantic decided to farm out the racquet business. It was then taken over by Sean Frost, a longtime Völkl executive, who walked away with the tennis distribution under the umbrella of his Klip company.
The new San Diego-based licensee also takes over the global license rights for the Boris Becker brand. Franz Völkl moved into the tennis business in 1972 when he introduced the so called Zebra racquet. The branch was transformed into a licensed business in 1999.
