REGGIO EMILIA, Italy — RCF Group has announced the sale of SGM, its lighting division, to a consortium headed by Danish entrepreneur Peter Johansen, effective Feb. 1, 2012. RCF Group chairman Arturo Vicari cited a need to focus on its core audio brand, with sales trending at nearly 50 percent ahead of the previous year, as a factor in the sale. The company noted that the decision was “entirely amicable and suits both parties.”
“Audio is performing well in most territories — other than the Eurozone — and has really burst into life this year, with sales exploding,” he said. “Strategically we have decided to invest our time, money and resources into maximizing this over the next 12 months. Why waste time in a market other than our core business when there were so many possibilities to exploit in audio?”
RCF spa reported increased penetration in the major MI, integration and live event sectors during the last quarter of 2011, and reported an overwhelming response to its display at ISE in Amsterdam this month. They reported particularly encouraging response to the TTL11A active column speaker array system, aimed at AV presentations or corporate events, the complete Media Series small-box range which complements the RCF Compact or H Series models, and VSA steerable column arrays for difficult acoustic environments.
Mr. Vicari continued, “The market is clearly indicating that it understands our product strategies, and we will be able to show the benefits of being able to dedicate all our time to audio with a range of new products which are being scheduled for Frankfurt Prolight+Sound in March.”
He also admitted that lighting had proved to be “a very tough business to be in — quite unlike audio.” He explained, “It was a good learning experience but taught us that what we are really specialists in is audio — that is where our success and our future lies.”
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