Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 23, 1993 TAG: 9301230113
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BUYER HAPPY WITH NAUTILUS WORKERS
The new owner of Nautilus International Inc., an Independence manufacturing firm, said Friday it plans no changes in the work force of 256 or management at the Grayson County plant."We know the type of highly skilled people there. We like them," said Douglas J. Stevens, controller of Delta Woodside Industries Inc., a Greenville, S.C., textile firm.
Delta said Thursday it had bought the exercise-equipment firm and a controlling interest in Apparel Marketing Corp., a company licensed to use the Nautilus name on sports clothing.
Stevens said Delta wants to use the Nautilus name for its knit-apparel line made at plants in Georgia and Tennessee. This would bring additional income back to Nautilus, he said.
The sale price was not reported. But Nautilus executive vice president Tom Jones of Roanoke said the company's five owners will receive "substantially more" than they paid for the company 2 1/2 years ago.
The sellers include Dan Baldwin of Independence, longtime company chief who continues as chairman; Leslie D. Aberson, a Louisville, Ky., lawyer; James Patterson of Louisville, founder of the Rally's hamburger chain; Hank Frigon, chief financial officer of Hallmark Cards of Kansas City, Mo., and Charles Ho of Sarasota, Fla., owner of a Hong Kong tobacco company.
Baldwin will head day-to-day operations, product development and manufacturing, Stevens said. Jones also is expected to continue with the company.
Stevens said Delta, maker of Duck Head casual clothing, has hopes of "building the company back to where it was six or seven years ago."
The Nautilus name also has been licensed for a soft drink and he said "it could be a valuable property" for other products.
A Charlotte, N.C., securities analyst estimated Nautilus sales last year at $18 million, but Jones said they were higher than that.
Nautilus has expanded from the exercise machine to the cardiovascular market and its export sales are rising, Jones said. Although its domestic market has not grown, he said, Nautilus in 1993 expects to be the first exercise-equipment company whose export sales exceed its U.S. business.
Nautilus revenues rose 20 percent last year, he said, on increasing business in China, Nigeria, Kuwait, Bahrain, and established markets in Japan and Germany.
Also, Jones said, the trainer for the Dallas Cowboys told him Nautilus is the only line of exercise equipment his team buys. Other exercise equipment companies donate their products to major league teams, Jones said.
Nautilus has sold to 25 of 26 National Football League teams, he said.