Bushnell Plots Expansion In Consumer Optics: Acquisitions of Bolle and Serengeti Enroll Stars in Premium Sunglasses

Hugely popular with athletes and upscale consumers, premium sunglasses producers Bolle Inc. and Serengeti Eyewear Inc. could not generate the same kind of enthusiasm from stock market investors. As parts of the expanding consumer optics empire being forged under the imprimatur of Bushnell Sports Optics, however, the two brands are regarded as the stars of the company’s far-reaching product mix. Bushnell, backed by Chicago-based Wind Point Partners, acquired Bolle in February and Serengeti in August, removing them from public ownership where their continually depressed prices penalized them for being rather small companies in spite of their strong consumer appeal. With their new owner’s support, better days are ahead for the two brands in the view of Bushnell CEO Joseph Messner. “The highest growth opportunity we see in the company being put together is in the sunglasses market, where the bulk of our brands recently have experienced strong growth and have the potential to continue at high rates of growth, Messner said. Bolle and Serengeti join a stable of sports optics products including binoculars, telescopes, rifle scopes, ski goggles, and other items that had been sold under the Bushnell and Bausch & Lomb names. Sales, said Messner, are running above $250 million and the company has scoped out a leadership position in the consumer optics area. As a focused private company with size and resources, Messner thinks that Bushnell will be able to put a lot more muscle behind the sunglasses brands than their predecessors who might have had a tough time selling extensive investment programs to public investors. “They simply lacked some of the investment needed to develop the product lines and invest in the demands and the market,” he says. Messner says that Bushnell works hard on product development, brand and image development, and market research to support all of its products. The company also is committed to premier service to an extensive customer base, which includes “every consumer channel distribution, from sporting goods to optical stores, from mass merchants to electronics and photographic stores.” He notes that many of the retail channels that Bushnell serves are consolidating but figures that could be an advantage for the company. “As retailers consolidate, that helps the leaders in the market,” he says. “Consolidation seems to favor the proactive leaders who are close to their customers and are working with them. You have to work very closely with customers. There are companies that want to be category leaders but don’t want to put the effort into it.” Messner is emphatic about the importance of market research and market development in Bushnell’s plans – so that the company can deliver the types of optical products that consumers want and need. “The focus is on more disciplined market research so that we can be in closer touch with what consumers’ desires are and what trends we see in the marketplace,” he says. These techniques already have been put to work for Bolle in the few months that it has been under Bushnell’s wing. The approach is to focus on specific sports to determine what will fly among enthusiasts by gathering “input from everyone in the industry.” “In cycling, for example, we will talk to the cyclists, the retailers, even the editors of cycling magazines so that we can develop our product efforts from the grass roots,” he says. Although Bolle’s sunglasses are its best-known products, that acquisition brought Bushnell other promising items for exploitation. Messner says that Bolle is also a major producer of ski goggles and enjoys a strong position in safety glasses in Europe and Australia. Bushnell also bets heavily on developing new and technologically advanced products in its well-known Bushnell binoculars and telescope lines. In telescopes, the company has added electronic functions that provide “star-finding capabilities.” And Bushnell binoculars are being augmented by digital image-capturing and laser range-finding capabilities. Although Messner doesn’t foreclose future diversification, plans for new types of product lines are basically on hold while Bushnell pushes growth and extensions in sunglasses and other existing lines. “We would like to concentrate on those growth opportunities and perhaps look for the opportunistic product that might have a unique technology and is synergistic with what we are doing now,” he says.