arena, Leading Swimwear Company, Acquired By Capvis

Arena, the Italian aquatics sports brand that has become one of the biggest swimwear companies in the world, has been purchased by Capvis, a Swiss-based mid-market private equity firm.  Prior to the transfer, the Arena brand was held by the Riverside Company, who first invested in the company back in 2010.

 

Below is an unedited press release courtesy of Arena:

Capvis, the leading Swiss mid-market private equity fund, has acquired arena, one of the world’s reference brands in aquatic sports. For over 40 years, arena has equipped the world’s Olympic gold medallists and watersport lovers with racing, training and leisure swimwear built on a foundation of technology and innovation. The acquisition is subject to approval by antitrust authorities.

Established in 1973 by German sports visionary Horst Dassler, son of the Adidas founder, arena was among the first swimwear companies to engage in textile and fluid dynamics research in quest to develop the fastest, lightest, smoothest and most durable products for both competitive and recreational swimmers.  Throughout the years, arena has equipped some of the world’s greatest swimming champions, incl. Mark Spitz, Franziska Van Almsick, Alexander Popov and Rebecca Soni – to name only a few. arena continues to define trends and set standards to this very day, most recently with its Powerskin Carbon-Pro racing swimsuit featuring the breakthrough technology of “intelligent compression”. In 2013 in Barcelona, arena counted up its most successful World Championships with almost half of all medals awarded in the pool and open water – along with three of six new world records – going to athletes wearing arena suits.

Headquartered in Tolentino (Italy), the arena research and development team works with a network of scientific partners and fabric manufacturers to develop innovative technologies applicable to racing swimwear and equipment. arena has subsidiaries in France, Germany, and the U.S., and also operates through a global network of distributors and licensees. The arena brand has a presence in over 100 countries around the globe.

Andreas Simon, partner of Capvis, comments: “As a global champion in its niche, arena perfectly fits the Capvis investment strategy. Propelled by innovation and uncompromising commitment to the sport of swimming and the brand visibility powering its surge worldwide, arena is uniquely positioned in one of the most popular sports categories. arena’s brand equity, validated from premier teams and organisations, offers significant value creation potential. We have followed the company and its management for years and are thrilled to power off the blocks with them, in the true sense of the word.”

Cristiano Portas, CEO of arena, confirms: “We are enthusiastic about our new shareholder Capvis who has the same vision for our brand and who shares our passion and determination for working hard to achieve great things. We welcome Capvis as our new partner and look forward to working together on becoming the market leader for competitive waterwear and promoting aquatic sports globally.”

About Capvis

Capvis is the leading private equity firm in Switzerland and one of the most active investors in German-speaking Europe. With a current fund with a volume of EUR 600 million, Capvis invests primarily in leading medium-sized companies. Capvis aims to support management teams in releasing entrepreneurial potential and achieving new levels of excellence. Since 1990 Capvis has completed 44 transactions with a total volume of more than EUR 5 billion. Capvis has floated nine companies on stock exchanges and has repeatedly been voted Switzerland’s and 2013 also Germany’s best private equity firm by the international financial press. www.capvis.com.

About arena

Since 1973, arena has created and marketed waterwear products for competitive swimmers and swimming fans worldwide, and is universally recognized as one of the premium brands of high-quality swimwear and equipment. Over the last 40 years, the company has developed strong expertise in developing best-in-class products with particular focus on the pool segment. arena has commercial subsidiaries in Italy, France, Germany, and the U.S., and also operates through a global network of distributors and licensees. The arena brand is present in 106 countries worldwide. The company’s ties to the world of sport and swimming in particular are reinforced through sponsoring activities at different levels, including governing bodies, national federations, athletes and clubs.

For more information, please visit: www.arenainternational.com and www.arenapowerskin.com.

Capvis

Media relations contact

Amanda Odermatt
Phone: +41 43 300 58 37
[email protected]

 

arena

Media relations contact

Cristina Cantoni
Phone: +39 0733 956268
[email protected]

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10 years ago

I am having great trouble – can you assist me with this description?
I want to trace a black arena swimbrief which does not show on their company website.
On the front is a small motif but on the rear is a r e n a spelled out in letters of changing colors left to right and underlined with a red swish.

TIA Brian

Giorgio Battistello
10 years ago

“I don’t care what they sell as long as it’s putting cash in deserving swimmers’ pockets.”

Well…. If there are no sales, there is no percentage available for sponsorship!

Peterdavis
10 years ago

Exactly. Always a chance of a big shake up aka blowing up Arena by Capvis, but not likely. Capvis is an all-star fund, consistently destroying targets on the front and back end of each of its iterations. The only thing to worry about is that Capvis has a rep for being hands on, but I believe that is unfairly attributed because they have guided several investments through their IPOs, which is a hands on business.

Overall this is a positive for Arena, as they’ve been scooped up by a fund that has a great track record and subscribers waiting in line. For our sport, the question is will this affect sponsorships and Arena’s competitive stance on putting money out… Read more »

HKSWIMMER
10 years ago

It won’t affect them at all, unless the new people decide to bring in company restructuring and change Arena’s direction as a result of that. However that is extremeley unlikely. This is on the whole a pretty good thing for Arena I’d say.

10 years ago

Hulk no understand fancy money talk…

How does this, if at all, affect Arena’s deals with the National Teams, and other club programs…

About Morgan Priestley

Morgan Priestley

A Stanford University and Birmingham, Michigan native, Morgan Priestley started writing for SwimSwam in February 2013 on a whim, and is loving that his tendency to follow and over-analyze swim results can finally be put to good use. Morgan swam competitively for 15+ years, primarily excelling in the mid-distance freestyles. While …

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