QubicaAMF Worldwide has announced that the Qubica legacy partners — Roberto Vaioli, Luca Drusiani, Emanuele Govoni, Guido Sorba, Pat Ciniello, Frank Mascadri and Rich Albright — have finalized a transaction with Bowlmor AMF to acquire their ownership in the company. After nearly a decade since the creation of QubicaAMF, the company will operate under a single private ownership.
Qubica Worldwide, which was founded in 1993 with $10,000 of capital by Vaioli, Drusiani and Govoni, has installed equipment on more than 35,000 lanes in more than 50 countries, and became the third largest bowling products company in the world in less than 12 years.
After acquiring the former Mendes company in 2003, the owners of Qubica entered into a 50/50 joint venture with the owners of AMF Bowling Products in June 2005, to form QubicaAMF. In September 2013, the Qubica founders and legacy partners bought the remaining shares from the European private equity fund that co-owned Qubica, giving them 50% ownership of QubicaAMF. Just over one year later, the Qubica legacy partners have acquired 100% ownership of QubicaAMF.
Govoni, former CEO of Qubica Worldwide and QubicaAMF’s Chief Marketing Officer, will serve as the CEO of QubicaAMF.
“With this transaction, we are going back to our roots, and believe we are positioning our company, and the entire bowling industry, for a new era,” Govoni said. “We are extremely honored, after 20 years of experience in this great industry, to now have the opportunity to take the legendary AMF brand, along with Qubica, to the next level.
“Since the inception of Qubica in 1993, we have been incredibly lucky and blessed, and are very thankful our journey in the bowling industry will continue for many years to come,” he added. “To make this happen, our group decided to invest our own money. We are all in for this industry and believe in this company, in our customers and in our many great employees around the world. We are very excited about the potential and the opportunities around the future of bowling. Bowling has great fundamentals as a business, as an entertainment activity and as a sport. We will work hard to contribute to the creation of a revitalized and re-energized industry where fun, innovation and transformation will spur new economic growth for our customers around the world.”
Bowlers Journal will have much more on this story in the January issue.
