The point of my post was that my guess would be that Barco would place Naim as high end rather than entry level, reworking the NC200 and Uniti ranges into one range spec’d to reflect a £6k entry point.
IMHO there isn’t space in a very congested market for £1500 (ish) Naim products, margins would be minuscule and sales would have to be exceptionally high to make a line profitable, products would have to be made completely in China rather than Salisbury. Not a route that I think that would benefit Naim.
Use the skills that exist in the current Naim HQ and create top drawer products hand built in the UK and market them accordingly.
From a financial point of view, things have started to turn a bit sour for Vervent Audio Group in 2023 / 2024, though and it looks to me that their current owners (Alpha Private Equity) are running away before things get worse… Consolidated Profit/Losses for Vervent look like this (based on readily available accounts from the web):
Year
Vervent Audio Group (EUR)
2019
3,414,371
2020
3,570,812
2021
8,537,195
2022
10,006,175
2023
- 1,132,102
2024
- 5,114,758
And if you look at the 2024 vs 2023 subsidiary breakdown, it shows that turnover dropped 19.4% at group level (-16% for the Focal entity, -12% for Focal Naim Canada, and a massive -31.7% for Naim Audio). As a consequence, Naim audio recorded a loss of ca. 1.5Mio EUR in 2024 (first time in a while) and Focal Naim Canada a loss of 2.1Mio EUR (that subsidiary has never been profitable in the last 5 years, as far as I can see and its value was materially marked down by Vervent in 2024, which probably accounts for some of the 2024 group level losses)…
Vervent and its subsidiaries typically report full year numbers in July, so a few more months until we see what 2025 looks like, but with the US tariffs situation, etc. things are unlikely to have materially improved in my opinion. The value of the US dollar has also materially reduced (ca. 10% down against EUR since beginning of last year, a bit less against GBP, which probably does not help either)…
My guess is that Barco may very well look at some “restructuring” once the transaction is completed…
I’ve never known an acquisition to do anything else. In the 4 I’ve been through, the reduction in headcount has ranged from 5%, 30%, and in one case 100% (thanks for the intellectual property, now bugger off the lot of you).
In the case of Naim, they are already part of a group so the standard procedure of stripping a company of F&A, HR, Marketing won’t apply as it already happened years ago I expect. But they will likely look to cut something.
To be fair (and we can all speculate as to what led to this situation), the Naim Audio numbers, and the likely sales dip in the US in 2025 (I guess), mean that a standalone Naim would need to do something quite significant to restore profitability if turnover does not pick up quickly…
It seems to me that Barco can lead Naim and Focal into the Enterprise segment and Naim/Focal can lead Barco into the domestic market. From this perspective it makes good sense.
What this means in terms of products remains to be seen. This will need to be worked out. Naim guys will need to get their selling boots on and share their DNA, which will speak volumes…
After Charlie, Naim has had a site director who’s been there for a number of years now - Cedric Magnaud. Most of the members who have visited the factory in recent years will have met him.
It’s probably of little consequence now, except perhaps for the healing of some emotional scars. Although, some of their functions, such as marketing are joined up as far as I could tell (for all the good it did them…).
Here in Benelux a winter promotion has been ongoing (CI-102 + a variety of Focal speakers as a package at a reduced price). So maybe they realised they can start selling this as “traditional” HiFi as well.
Hi, thanks for response. Obviously my very basic understanding led me to believe that Vervent group being bought out (thread title) could mean the return to separate operations for Naim and Focal should the new company wish it.
Or maybe it doesn’t sell good and they try to find new ways to sell it. My experience is that is often the case when bundles and campaigns starts to show up with no given reason.
I think product management made a bunch of wrong roadmap decisions putting Naim in a troublesome economical situation.
