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Diving equipment manufacturer Aqualung is selling its US Divers snorkelling brand to California-based company Aqua Master Sporting Technology.

The transaction is part of the strategy announced by the group last year to abandon its “swim snorkel paddle” business in North America and focus on its core markets of equipment for military and professional divers, with operations centralised in France.

The move to “reallocate human and financial efforts” is designed to enable the group to develop its other brands and boost investment in digitalisation and technological research, in a bid to restore long-term sustainable growth.  

The majority of Aqualung’s North American staff were given notice shortly before Christmas as the group’s new owner Barings Investment Group launched its restructuring. It appointed Bruno Cercley, whose background is in aeronautical engineering and winter sports, to chair a supervisory board to carry out the process.

Sixty US-based employees were let go and facilities in California and Hawaii closed, with the US distribution office transferred to a new East Coast facility. Only 23 posts were to be retained, with 16 working remotely and the others offered the chance to transfer to the new site.

Aqualung was set up during World War Two to sell the original scuba-diving system based on the demand valve developed by Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan. When they started operations in the USA in 1952 with René Bussoz it was initially as US Divers.

The first modern drysuit, a succession of increasingly sophisticated regulators, underwater cameras and BCs were followed by fins, masks and snorkels, with the business going on to include the Apeks, Omer, Aquasphere and Stohlquist brands

In 2003 US Divers became Aqualung America, with the original name retained by the group’s snorkelling line.

Private-equity company Montagu took ownership of Aqualung from Air Liquide in 2016, with Barings becoming part of the lender group providing financial support from that point, but in mid-2022 a French court gave Aqualung a deadline to restructure its debt, with its financial struggles coming to a head last year.

The Aqualung Group retains manufacturing facilities in the UK, Italy and Mexico as well as France, employing some 800 staff.

Also read: Barings set to acquire Aqualung Group, Aqualung gets a new, fresh identity in 2021 rebrand

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