Ohlin's buys back 95% of itself from Yamaha

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Ohlins Buys Self Back From Yamaha
by dean adams
Friday, December 21, 2007
This just in from Ohlins:

Öhlins Racing AB comes back home to Sweden This morning the Company founder Kenth Öhlin has reclaimed a 95% share of the world famous suspension manufacturer Öhlins Racing AB after a 25 year long, prosperous cooperation with the Yamaha Group. The company has grown to an annual turnover of Euro 52 million with 235 employees with distributors in more than 50 countries on all continents. Öhlins Racing AB is also represented with subsidiary offices in Germany and USA.

It all started back in 1975 when Kenth Öhlin, 26 years old, founded the company that became one of the most prestigious suspension brands in the world - Öhlins Racing AB. With a core business focus on high performance racing and technological excellence the young Swede soon got a high reputation in the racing community and the company prospered.

During the years that followed Öhlins Racing AB entered new business areas such as ATV, snowmobiles, automotive and the vast street racing motorcycle sector. The urge to find new, brilliant solutions to the challenges within the suspension industry, resulted in new patents that needed substantial investments.

In 1987 Yamaha Motor Europe N.V. became the majority owner of Öhlins Racing AB though the suspension manufacturer continued to be an independent, dynamic company. The support from Yamaha was necessary to realize all the ideas that Kenth had in mind.

One of the most well known products that were born thanks to the new cooperation was the CES valve. The CES valve was patented in 1984 and now, more than 20 years later the automotive industry has fully understood the power of the Continuously Controlled Suspension System. Today Volvo, Ford, Audi and Mercedes use the system in their cars and in the end of 2008 the total number of delivered CES valves exceeds 1 000 000 units.

Kenth Öhlin has never left the day-to-day management despite the fact that he travels the globe to represent the brand as the president of the company. His motivation and endless energy has inspired the staff throughout the years and the focus has been clear.

After several months of negotiations Yamaha Group and Kenth Öhlin have found a strong ground for further cooperation. The bond between Yamaha and Öhlins Racing AB is as strong as ever but now with a change of the majority stake. Kenth Öhlin owns from today, the 21 December 2007, 95% of the shares in the company, bringing the company back home to Swedish soil once again.

Öhlins Racing AB is looking forward to the coming years with great expectations. New technological innovations are about to be realized the coming years and it is with great pride and satisfaction that the products from Öhlins Racing AB continues to be a Swedish quality product, made in Sweden owned by the founder of the company.

ENDS
 
So what does that mean for us.... Better shocks/calibration?
 
Not much different for us the consumers, Ohlins have been run as an independant entity under the Yamaha Group.

Kenneth is now the majority shareholder in total control of, finally, his own company. I guess he'll be making more money as well.

The shock/calibretion question would be as before, it's coming down to what Yamaha orders from Ohlins.
 
I wonder if ALL the Ohlins parts will now be available in the US?
 
yamaha did what many manufacturers do...buy an investment stake in a company to gain valuable proprietary info ....only to later shed or lose but still keep the valuable r&d gained..ohlins could never be a winning investment for yamaha...although the r&d gained was invaluable...
another example of this on a greater scale was GM's 38% stake in fuji heavy industries (subaru) for their world class all wheel drive technology .
 
that's the way it works, business as usual :-)
 
I can't imagine all that Moto GP and high end car racing technology is anything but good for joe public.

kinda sucks that they sold it back to him.
 
I think its great. Why should the big companies own everything? They can still buy the shocks from Öhlins... And after all this time i think that the relationship is not going to just end.. I bet we will se some Öhlins on our sleds in the future aswell...

Is this why Yamaha went with Fox on the racesleds...??
 
Yamaha is not the sole company running Ohlins shocks in their MotoGP bikes, most of the teams are. Yamaha are in fact a large shock manufaturer, making SOQI, and own shares in KYB and Kayaba shocks as well. Wonder who is the 5% minority shareholder in Ohlins?
 


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