Kingswood Capital Management, an operationally-focused lower-middle market private equity firm, has acquired WAVE Electronics. Kingswood will merge WAVE with its portfolio company, AVAD. In bringing together WAVE and AVAD, Kingswood says it will create the single largest value-added distributor of high-end audio, video, security, and home automation solutions in the consumer electronics industry.
The new company will be focused on the residential and commercial custom installation markets in North America. According to Kingswood, the combination of WAVE and AVAD will deliver a far-reaching benchmark solution to elevate same-day product needs, national one-day shipping, and award-winning services for dealers and vendors across the United States and Canada.
At closing, Mark Fukuda, former chief operating officer for WAVE, will take over as the chief executive officer for the combined new enterprise. Key members of the new executive management team will include Bill Steckel as chief finance officer, Ainslie Fukuda as vice president of purchasing, Bryan Stewart as vice president of sales, and Jon Zabel as vice president of vendor management.
The new company will be headquartered in Houston, TX, with an initial objective to combine the residential AV, pro AV, and security brands across all of its North American locations. The new company plans to integrate its award-winning dealer services, including tech support, programming services, marketing services, and dealer programs.
“Both AVAD and WAVE have spent years perfecting the just-in-time distribution model and this rapidly accelerates our ability to bring our award-winning service and product solutions to dealers throughout the United States and Canada," said Fukuda. "AVAD has built a strong presence in the pro AV channel, WAVE has done the same in the residential security space, combining that with our collective strength in the residential AV markets and our new larger North American footprint is a winning combination.”
Tom Jacoby, who had been serving as AVAD’s chief executive officer and who will become chairman of the combined company, added, “Fred Farrar and I have spent the last two years at AVAD positioning the company for exactly this kind of market expansion opportunity. We are very grateful to the AVAD team, which has worked diligently over the past couple years to position the company for profitable growth following the carve-out from Ingram Micro in 2016. The WAVE leadership team has built great operating systems and developed transformational segment opportunities that make it natural for Mark Fukuda to assume leadership of the combined business."
Alex Wolf, managing partner of Kingswood, concluded, “The merger of WAVE and AVAD provides for a unique combination of scale and diversification in the North American custom-installer channel. The combination of WAVE and AVAD creates a multitude of growth opportunities from a wide base of 31 different physical locations. Industry integrators will have access to an industry-leading line card at more locations than ever before.”
