What pulls my tit, is they market JV and his story and the old company’s ethics like they still roll that way. to me what’s happening , the old box incompatibility with the New gear is certainly not the way they once rolled.
A well known UK audiophile who knew JV told me he wouldn’t be really very happy.
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These are just the ones that bought, what you need is to look at is who sold to them. And then keep on going along that track until you find the ones to blame.
The board is responsible (legally so in most countries I believe) to the shareholders and the employees. To protect their investment.
Why not interview them and ask about the plan? No local newspapers in Salisbury?
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How was the ownership of naim up until vervent/alpha? Why did they let go of that position. Someone cashed out and got rich or financial issues?
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Mmm that’s the marketing gloss. I mean the truth behind all that. You rarely merge companies like that if it’s not someone cashing out or you are in desperate need of money to prevent killing your business IMO.
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Looking at the spin and the make up of that holding company and board, it was a takeover by Focal, aided by the management team at Naim (where they the Naim owners?), who were most likely cashing up big time. The dominance of the French owners is self evident.
The majority share was sold in 2011 so you can work it out from there…
Focal and Naim combining forces was always a bit of a strange one, but still with all the changes and acquisitions, ‘Naim’ is still in business in 2023.
Perhaps if the big change in 2011 hadn’t happened and with all the various world events (COVID, British stupidity starting in 2016 etc) since, it may have been a completely different story.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
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Wiki
At the time of his death, Julian Vereker held half of the share capital of the company. The other half was in the hands of employees, including Paul Stephenson who owned 20 percent. Vereker bequeathed his shares to be held in a trust of which Stephenson is trustee.[10]
Paul Stephenson “left” naim year after Vervent got in.
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So Naim we’re owned by the founder and employees. Now owned by a venture capital company. Nice.
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Money talks. Wonder what happened to that trust Stephenson laid his hands on. Guess that went out the door to Focal and Vervent.
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Certain trusts can be wrapped up by the trustee in the interest of the beneficiaries. Not an expert here but do have direct experience of this being possible
I would suggest that members get back on topic here. Few if any here seem to be in possession of the facts of why Naim had to be sold over a decade ago, and there seems to be an element of axe grinding going on, and that bodes badly for this thread continuing much longer. Bear in mind that as a business Naim has been extremely successful during this last decade. Things could have gone much worse… I think that’s where we will leave it on here. Thanks.
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My own take is that Naim will move all of the 200 series manufacture offshore. Otherwise there’s bound to be problems for dealers if both UK and Slovakia originated goods start arriving. It’s no slight on the latter but people will want the UK product. Naim is a high-end brand and provenance is very important. Or perhaps UK stockists will be fed from Salisbury and Slovakia will supply the rest of the world.
I wonder where the new 300PS will be made?
My guess is < 300 will be made in Slovakia and 300+ in Salisbury in future. Slovakia set up for the higher volume lines and Salisbury for the lower.
That’s just pure guesswork of course.
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Instead of speculation I share a post of an interview with Paul detailing what happened (in his point of view). An interesting read if you also like company history and its development like me and many others do 
CT: Will they be Naim products?
PS: They will only be Naim products. You will never see a Naim/Focal badge on a product together.
PS: Okay. Let’s sort this. The truth is that Focal & Co bought 100% of Naim shares. And the way this deal has been managed is that, as part of them acquiring those shares, almost half of all the Naim shares that they acquired were turned into Focal shares, so myself, the Trust, etc., anybody who was a shareholder of Naim, becomes a shareholder of Focal & Co. So I am now a director of Focal and I sit on their board, but I am also personally a shareholder of Focal & Co. that owns Focal/JMlab and Naim. But you asked what’s in it for them? Well, some of Naim’s strength comes from the success that we have had in Europe particularly, and we’ve got a good understanding of how that has happened. Part of my job, sitting on the Focal board, is to pass on some of the experience of our success into how we can help to influence the Focal brand to get stronger and have more market share.
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This seems like a smart move - Dolby did something similar a few years back by outsourcing manufacturing having manufactured in Wootton Bassett since 1993 and Clapham Road previously. Ultimately the way technology has gone over the last 25 years with lead free solder, ever smaller surface mount technologies, especially the ball grid array packaged FPGAs it’s hard to do consistently unless you are doing it at scale. Test equipment aside, anything from the chrome bumper era and much of the olive series could have been constructed on a kitchen table, and the good news is that most of it is still serviceable 3-4 decades later. I miss this way of building things as it’s how I got into electronics as a teenager in the 1980s. I suspect my CB NAT01/32.5/HC/135 system will outlast me, but I’d not expect that sort of lifespan from the newer gear due to the obsolescence of replacement parts and the complexity in repair.
Its also perfectly possible that a new manufacturing facility would lend a new perspective and that the learnings would be bidirectional which can only be a good thing for the end product if the right management controls are in place.
Advancements in complexity lead to faster obsolescence. It’s why there are an increasing number of airworthy Spitfires every year but the Avto Vulcan and SR-71 are static museum exhibits.
Personally I don’t give a fig where it’s made as long as it makes us happy!
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One of my very favourite pop songs and videos. IMO you don’t need much of an excuse to play ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’
It was a great interview. We need a Part 2, covering the Verter (??) buy out of Focal & Co.
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I remember some of the first JM loudspeakers
They were actually very good.
Didn’t he have a finger in the Hiraga amp too ?
presumably the ability/simplicity of selling in Europe (and maybe other countries) played an important part in the decision.
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