Ralph Slazenger - Selling A Brand

Selling A Brand

It is probably fair to say that technology and China played a major part in the rise and fall of this famous brand. In the days when wooden tennis racquets held no peer, brands such as Slazenger and Dunlop were a dominant force in the world.

With the popularity of the metal tennis racquet from the early 1980s and then the fast transition to even more popular composite materials such as fiberglass, graphite, Kevlar and so on more and more brands became available to the consumer. These new brands were more popular than the old, historic brands such as Slazenger. Add to this the rise in the quality of these products being produced and far cheaper in the East than anywhere else, Slazenger no longer could hold favour with the public, and the brand slowly fell from grace.

• 1959: Ralph Slazenger Jr. sells the family business to Dunlop Rubber.

• 1985: Dunlop Rubber is purchased by BTR plc, which forms a Sports Group combining Slazenger with the Dunlop Sport branded goods.

• 1996: BTR sells Dunlop Sport in a management buyout for £300 million - the buyout was backed by investment company Cinven. The new company is known as Dunlop Slazenger.

• 2004: CINVen sells Dunlop Slazenger to Sports Direct International for a reported £40 million, who in turn sold on the rights to the Slazenger Golf brand in Europe to JJB Sports.