The mergers roll on.
Australian audio company Rode has acquired American audio equipment manufacturer Mackie.
$180 Million Dollars ! This is big money.
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That’s walking around money!
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I like Rode’s mics, there wireless pro 2 have served my video content creating very well.
This one almost, kind of, nearly makes sense…
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This is probably the least-bad merger/buyout/thing that I’ve seen in a while. A good, similar market company buying another. Seems logical, and I don’t see why this would be bad for either party.
Still have a soft spot for Mackie even these days. Have a few little VLZs that I use for various tasks. Loved my MkI HR824s way back when. Even the lower end stuff isn’t too bad for what it is, and who it’s intended for. Sure there are fancier things out there, but for smaller workhorse items, they’re still pretty solid.
I guess the Korg / Waldorf thing hasn’t been too bad either. I hear support can be hit/miss sometimes, but otherwise, it seems to have allowed Waldorf to keep putting out lovely synths.
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Agreed.
I suppose some could cast this in a nationalist sort of way. I don’t think that’s really too relevant.
This will help Rode with international sales, though they had that down pretty much anyway. It solidifies their product line for sure.
Not the best move for diversification. And it’s less of a conglomerate grower as a lot of the recent deals.
Some people at Mackie have an awful lot of money in their pockets, so it might be interesting to see what they might do with that.
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Looking forward to a 1202VLZ5 Drop Bear Edition
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I guess 32-bit float makes you a high roller these days.
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Or really fast DSP integer. 
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And Oracle’s last acquisition (Cerner) was a $28 billion acquisition… biggest I’d seen go by in awhile.
Love my little Mackie… this seems like it makes sense to me as well, although I’m not too familiar with Rode.
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Guess this one will be more interesting long term than short term like some other acquisitions-turn-mass-layoffs
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There is plenty of opportunity to trim duplicate functions. It wasn’t that either company was in trouble ( at least that i know of ) so this isn’t about changing things or streamlining.
You can probably move people around, or maybe this will continue to function as two companies.
I hope they’re successful with this.
Mackie, which has been owned by Californian private equiteers Transom Capital since 2017, oversees contract manufacturing of its gear in Shenzhen.
Mr Freedman said some of that activity would be shifted to Rode’s advanced manufacturing hub in Sydney, which has 26,000 square metres of factories and warehouses in Silverwater and Greystanes, and housing precision machinery valued at more than $500 million.
“With the set-up we’ve got here, there’s a lot of things we can do cheaper than China,” he said.
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We’re seeing this a lot now days.
So the 180 will probably go to fund some more acquisitions.
Good info uglymule.
Not to get too off-topic but I know some people who worked at Cerner. Apparently working for Oracle as an acquired employee is brutal.
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…once, mackie was a huuuge brand…if it was actually on sale for just 180 mils, u can clearly see what’s left of it…
rode have found their new marketsegment to be huuuge, too, lately…podcaster mobile studio hw to broadcast urself around the globe, find all the perfect tools right there to do so these days…
wonder what the mates from down under wanna do with mackie…?..
don’t see any logical point in this purchase…
I sat behind a couple dudes in Rode gear at a developer’s conference recently, in a machine learning session. so get ready for some AI-fueled mixers and mics! 
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Fun fact, Transom Capital also just carved out Bose Professional this year. I wouldn’t be surprised if they “streamlined operations” with an eye towards flipping it to Rode.
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Yeah definitely makes sense considering their push into mixing consoles for podcasters.
Not to stray too further off topic, I work for Oracle as part of a company acquired in the early 2000s for 9 billion. While some parts of the company felt this same way as your anecdote, my experience in the unit I work in has been great, and I’m still there almost 20 years and 5 patents later.
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