Houlihan Lokey Advises Airhead Sports Group

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Airhead Sports Group (Airhead), a portfolio company of Falconhead Capital, LLC (Falconhead Capital), has been acquired by Aqua-Leisure Recreation, LLC (Aqua-Leisure), a portfolio company of Blackford Capital. The transaction closed on December 1, 2021.

Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, and founded in 1991, Airhead Sports Group manufactures market-leading outdoor, marine, watersports, and winter leisure products under the brand names Airhead, Sportsstuff, and Yukon Charlie's. Its products include towable tubes, tow ropes, life jackets, pool floats and loungers, marine accessories, snowshoes, trekking poles, and snow sleds. Airhead is the No. 1 brand in the marine towable watersports and winter leisure activity product categories, and Airhead products are distributed across 60+ countries through six core channels.

Founded in 1998, Falconhead Capital is a private equity firm based in New York, New York. The firm focuses on investing in companies in the sports, media and entertainment, recreational equipment and apparel, personal care and wellness, food and beverage, and consumer services sectors. Its principals seek to partner with outstanding management teams who are focused on long-term value creation.

Based in Avon, Massachusetts, and founded in 1970, Aqua-Leisure is dedicated to designing, developing, manufacturing, and marketing high-quality, performance-based aquatic products and pool accessories under a variety of brand names and proprietary designs, including Aqua Pro, Aqua, Aqua Fitness, Dolfino, and SwimSchool. Aqua-Leisure’s brand pillars of quality, accessibility, and adventure push its goal of providing top-tier products for athletes, water lovers, adventure seekers, children, and more. This is the first add-on acquisition for Aqua-Leisure since it was acquired by Blackford Capital in 2021.

Founded in 2010, Blackford Capital is a private equity investment firm headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Blackford Capital makes majority control investments in founder and family-owned, lower middle-market manufacturing, industrial, and distribution companies.

Houlihan Lokey acted as exclusive financial advisor to Airhead and assisted in initiating and negotiating the transaction on its behalf.

This transaction reinforces Houlihan Lokey's strong global presence in the active lifestyle industry. The deal also marks the active lifestyle team’s 13th completed transaction in the past 20 months since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrating the team’s exceptional success rate and continued momentum in an unprecedented global M&A environment.