Bowers & Wilkins To Keep Name After San Francisco 49ers Co-owner's Purchase

B&W announced Tuesday it was bought by Yu’s 2-year-old Silicon Valley startup, EVA Automation, after what Yu told us was a “whirlwind bromance.” Terms weren’t disclosed, but Yu referred to a “significant amount of capital," enough to woo B&W’s CEO Joe Atkins to continue as CEO and retain “significant equity” in the company.

Yu is such a B&W fan that he’s tossing the EVA name and the combined company will be known as Bowers & Wilkins, he said. “With a brand like Bowers & Wilkins, you’d be foolish not to fully utilize the brand,” he said.

A former chief financial officer for YouTube and Facebook, Yu began his pursuit of a high-end audio company two years ago while hunting for an audio system for his own living room, which he found “hadn’t been created yet,” he said. His goal was to develop a product with the “highest quality, with the best user experience, with easy setup and really easy control for all of my AV devices all throughout my house,” he said.

EVA’s premise at launch was that a simplified user experience and multiroom AV technology “could intersect with the highest quality audio," he said. Yu quickly realized the competitive landscape in CE made it difficult for a startup with a new brand to gain any market traction. “It’s hard to rise above the noise,” he said. So Yu sought respected high-end audio brands for partner relationships and landed on B&W, he said.

Yu reached out to Atkins and there was “so much overlap in what we saw for the future," along with "complementary assets between our two companies,” Yu said. He cited B&W’s focus on quality, craftsmanship and channel support. Atkins, said Yu, saw that technology, user experience and wireless technology would “help supplement” B&W’s product offerings and “take it to the next level.” Discussions went beyond a partnership because “the deepest possible level of partnership is acquisition,” said Yu. In a statement, Atkins called it an “exciting time for Bowers & Wilkins” and with EVA, “we have a true innovator in the technology sector.”

All B&W audio engineers will be retained under the purchase, and the company will invest in more, said Yu. “This is not a story of takeover or contraction or cost-cutting,” said Yu. “This is a story of growth.” To the 1,000-plus employees of Bowers & Wilkins who woke up Tuesday to the news the company had been sold to “a company they’ve never heard of,” Yu said it’s not a story of “change for change’s sake” but one of investment and "helping employees become what they’ve aspired to be.”

Yu's message to B&W customers and dealers: There will be more investment in audio in the U.S. and in the U.K. to create something combining “what’s best of Silicon Valley” with “what’s best of Bowers & Wilkins.” The purchase also includes the Classe Audio and Rotel brands, he said.

Yu repeated that his plan isn’t to “fix” B&W, calling it “preposterous” that a 2-year-old company could play that role with a venerable brand. When Yu started EVA, he felt the market lacked a clear, easy integration among high quality audio products, app-driven control and easy setup, he said. What exists in the market today “is not where I want it as a customer,” he said. Ease of use and easy setup are sometimes achieved at the expense of quality, Yu said, but the confluence of the three “could actually happen” if B&W’s vision plays out with the EVA’s financial resources.

On capabilities future B&W products will offer, Yu cited multiroom audio and wireless as features, part of "a larger, great user experience for all AV in your house.” Analog speakers remain an integral part of future plans, and digital speakers will join the mix, he said. The connected car is also part of Yu’s strategy, he said, but he declined to share more of his vision, citing early days of the relationship and the need to mesh the companies’ product road maps. “If you think about a consolidated AV user experience for your life," not having connected cars, headphones and home audio products would make for "a very incomplete vision,” he said. The companies will go as fast as they can, “but we’re not going to rush anything,” Yu said. Early to mid-2017 is the target launch date for now, he said.

Despite his appreciation for B&W’s premium-grade products, Yu sees the opportunity to be the premium brand among various category segments in a good-better-best scenario, he said. For now, the company will “selectively” do product extensions where it’s a “good investment,” he said. Yu reaffirmed the company’s commitment to different channels: custom installation, mainstream distribution and specialty AV. “That’s part of the fantastic assets that we saw in this company,” he said. Yu and Atkins will both “invest heavily” in time and resources to making the retail relationships better, he said. “We’re going to try really hard to show them we’re going to be the most cooperative possible -- just as they have in the past,” he said.

Jon Robbins, executive director of the Home Technology Specialists of America buying group, had a positive early take on the purchase, highlighting Yu’s financial background in the tech industry. EVA Automation is “still developing and they want to do what they think is best in the AV space,” Robbins said. For HTSA members, the financial support and a link between audio and automation would present a “best-case scenario” for HTSA members who could add premium speakers and audio to an automation sale, he said. “Any more smart people we can put in our channel, I’m all for,” Robbins said.