BATON ROUGE — Three years after Baton Rouge-founded sports equipment manufacturer Marucci Sports was acquired by publicly-traded Fox Factory Holding Corp, the company announced on Friday afternoon that it will return to private ownership.
The recent acquisition of Murucci Sports—including its Marucci, Victus, Baum, Lizard Skins and The Stable brands—was led by Marucci Founder and CEO Kurt Ainsworth, alongside a group of investors that include current and former Major League Baseball players and other professional athletes. The transaction returns Marucci to be privately held and restores an ownership structure grounded in the company’s origins as a player-founded and player-led business, unique in the diamond sports equipment sector.
The company has changed hands a few times over the years. In 2020, Marucci Sports was bought by a Connecticut-based company for $200 million. Three years later, Marucci’s parent company Wheelhouse Holdings was bought by Fox Factory Holding Corp., which mostly produced products for bikes and off-road vehicles, for $572 million…