Masimo Enters Into Agreement To Acquire Sound United
I have followed the continued growth of Sound United over the years as it brought together under its wings many well known and very established audiophile companies to include; Denon, Marantz, Definitive Technology, Classe, Polk, HEOS, Boston Acoustics and recently Bowers & Wilkins. So to put it mildly I was astonished when on February 15th 2022 Sound United announced that it was to be sold lock, stock and barrel to a medical company – Masimo Corporation.
While Masimo had a 2020 annual revenue of approximately $2 billion dollars, Sound United’s revenue of $500 million seems rather paltry in comparison, so what was the attraction to buy this company? Clearly the Masimo stock holders were not in favor as on the day of the purchase announcement Masimo’s stock price dropped from $221.66 to $154.34, a 30% drop!!
Coming from Iran, the founder, chairman and CEO of Masimo is Joe Kiani. He started Masimo in 1989, a company that is focussed on the development of health monitoring products for hospital and personal use. The company is best known for its breakthrough innovation of pulse oximetry technology, a noninvasive way to measure blood oxygen in patients.
Personally I do not see the obvious opportunities that buying Sound United offers Masimo or Sound United. Maybe its a market opening that will allow Masimo to embed their health monitoring technology into the huge home audiophile equipment and earphones markets, making it a de facto home health monitoring system, who knows.
This agreement is due to be finalized mid 2022. Let’s hope that Kiani is a real supporter of audiophile equipment and doesn’t have some ulterior motives.
Read the Sound United Press Announcement here.
Read my older posts on Sound United’s growth below:
