They are all together as one company.
A week after Jarden Co. bought Pure Fishing they just bought out K2

http://www.jarden.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=72395&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=989982&highlight=

all Brands listed below are now combined under the same company.

K2 Inc. is a premier, branded consumer products company with a portfolio of leading brands including Shakespeare(R), Penn(R), Pflueger(R), Sevylor(R) and Stearns(R) in the Marine and Outdoor segment; Rawlings(R), Worth(R) and JT(R) in the Team Sports segment; K2(R), Volkl(R), Marker(R) and Ride(R) in the Action Sports segment; and Adio(R), Marmot(R) and Ex Officio(R) in the Apparel and Footwear segment. K2's diversified mix of products is used primarily in team and individual sports activities such as fishing, watersports activities, baseball, softball, alpine skiing, snowboarding and in-line skating. Among K2's other branded products are Hodgman(R) waders, Miken(R) softball bats, Tubbs(R) and Atlas(R) snowshoes, Brass Eagle(R) and Worr Games(R) paintball products, Planet Earth(R) apparel and Sospenders(R) personal floatation devices.

Adio(R), Atlas(R), Brass Eagle(R), Ex Officio(R), Hodgman(R), JT(R), K2(R), Marker(R), Marmot(R), Penn(R), Pflueger(R), Planet Earth(R), Rawlings(R), Ride(R), Sevylor(R), Shakespeare(R), Sospenders(R), Stearns(R), Tubbs(R), Volkl(R), Worth(R) and Worr Games(R) are trademarks or registered trademarks of K2 Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States or other countries.

About Jarden

Jarden Corporation is a leading provider of niche consumer products used in and around the home. Jarden operates in three primary business segments through a number of well recognized brands, including: Branded Consumables: Ball(R), Bee(R), Bicycle(R), Crawford(R), Diamond(R), First Alert(R), Forster(R), Hoyle(R), JavaLog(R), Kerr(R), Lehigh(R), Leslie-Locke(R), Loew- Cornell(R) and Pine Mountain(R); Consumer Solutions: Bionaire(R), Crock- Pot(R), FoodSaver(R), Harmony(R), Health o meter(R), Holmes(R), Mr. Coffee(R), Oster(R), Patton(R), Rival(R), Seal-a-Meal(R), Sunbeam(R), VillaWare(R) and White Mountain(TM); and Outdoor Solutions: Abu Garcia(R), Berkley(R), Campingaz(R), Coleman(R), Fenwick(R), Gulp(R), Mitchell(R), Stren(R) and Trilene(R). Headquartered in Rye, N.Y., Jarden has over 20,000 employees worldwide. For more information, please visit www.jarden.com

Wow
Did i read it right at 1.2 billion...

yes you did:eyes:

That is a big nut to swallow ... interesting that their shareholders went for two acquisitions in a row ... Pure was about $400 million and now this ... hope they do okay, as that's a lot of capital to make up ...

I'm a bit curious as to how this works. Maybe someone with more knowledge in this area can shed some light on it. Typically, when very large corporations buy out other very large corporations, there are "crossover" products. That's to say, products that are essentially the same. From what I've seen, the FTC usually forces them to eliminate such crossover products in order to prevent them from owning too much of the market and allowing fair competition.
Again, maybe I'm wrong and someone with more knowledge can set this straight. But if something like that were to happen, we all loose with the loss of selection IMO. Wasn't that somewhat the basis of Microsofts' lawsuit that was brought against them?
Anybody?

I'm sure there are crossover and dupllicate products between the different brands but the FTC won't give a rat's *ss about it because it is in a consumer niche market so we can expect to see "consolidation" and elimination of brands.

What the FTC cares about is a company exercising monopoly power in a market by eliminating competition. Microsoft was accused of doing this by "bundling" its operating system, Windows, with its browser, Internet Explorer. This forced consumers that wanted the OS to use the Microsoft browser. It was unfair for other browser makers because Windows came with a browser.

In this case, while there are numerous brands under one parent, there are many other choices in the market not under the parent. Shimano, Daiwa, St.CRoix, etc... There is nothing here that prevents someone else from competing in the market...

Yes it may lead to consolidation among some of their brands.

I think the Microsoft comparison would only fly here if one rod maker owned 95% of the market and only made their rods to fit their own reels. Clearly not the case.