SOLD! – RIFE PUTTERS

RIFE – Living A Double Life

Have you ever heard of anyone or seen one of those shows about people that lead double lives?  You know the ones where the dad has a second family while his first family is living their lives completely unaware.  Well that’s kind of the life the RIFE brand has been living for the past couple years.  To the average consumer everything looked to be running smoothly.  But to the guys who own retail operations with RIFE accounts or guys working on the tour vans crossing the country week in and week out…these guys knew that RIFE was having problems.

Many of you were probably not even aware that the RIFE Putter brand was up for sale much less being sold to an almost unknown company called Innovex Golf.  I don’t know how they did it…but for the last year they managed to make it appear to the consumer that it was business as usual over at RIFE.  They were still sending out press releases with notes of interest and even tweeting about who was using their putters this week on tour.  Only problem was nothing was really going on…and until just recently as far as I know they didn’t even really have any product on hand in the country to sell.  Even as we speak (last I heard) they don’t have any product in the states…orders are being filled overseas directly from the foundry to oversea retail accounts…never touching the hands of the RIFE employees.  So what happened to the RIFE brand and where did this all go wrong?

How Many People Do You Think Owned RIFE?

Well…if you and 16 of your friends owned a putter company which you had up for sale…what do you think the chances are all of your buddies could agree on the same deal?

Maybe 25%, 10% how about 0%?

Well that’s exactly the issue RIFE Putters has been going through for the past couple years.  I have been talking with insiders about the sale of RIFE for close to a year now and the last time I checked there were 17 owners of the RIFE Putter company. Two majority owners making up 80% and 15 others making up the remaining 20%.  “Too many chiefs…” and well…just too many chiefs to make a single decision.  Which led to delays which led to a complete stall in the day to day business operations.

How Much Do You Think Guerin Rife Owned?

So how much did the man that actually started the company Guerin Rife own in his own company?  ZERO PERCENT!

Hard to believe but the man’s name who is engraved on the bottom of all these putters hasn’t owned any of the RIFE Putter brand for quite some time.  But…for those interested in what Mr. Rife has been doing since this time…we will have more about that in the near future.  Though if your a fan of his designs and want to know if he will still be making putters in the future…the chances look pretty good ;)  Word is he’s working on some pretty special putters right now…but whether or not you will see much of them in the US…we will just have to wait and see.  Looks like these may be made for the Asian market from what I have heard.

Anyways back to RIFE sale and the debacle of what could have been.  Hindsight is always 20/20…but to think that a putter company which once sold $9 million dollars worth of putters in 2008 and was “#1 on the Champions Tour” for several years could get to a point where the company was literally worth nothing more than its name is hard to believe.  Now…you might be saying “well in today’s economy it is tough”…but this seems to have less to do with the economy and more to do with simply a poorly run company.  Getting 17 people to agree on what they want for lunch is tough enough now try and get them to all come to the same conclusion on business decisions that have to be made every single day in order to keep a business afloat.

On Again…Off Again

Multiple deals have been on the table and then later taken off the table from multiple companies and individuals interested in buying the RIFE brand during the past couple years. But it seems like their inability to come to an agreement took the once well known and well respected putter brand to a stalemate of sorts.  And in the meantime the company once selling millions and millions of dollars worth of putters became stagnant and drained of almost all of its past value to a future buyer.

So what was the asking price for the RIFE putter brand? Well no concrete numbers or anything official on the final purchase price but from past possible buyers the deal seemed to be around the $2 Million dollar mark.  These numbers are pure speculation but from what I was told the breakdown would be something like $1.4 Million to the majority owners and $600,000 to the remaining owners.  But those numbers like I said are speculative and not concrete.

And believe it or not even after all the press this deal has gotten I still cannot get anyone inside RIFE to tell me that the deal is even done yet.  Which you might find odd…but with the sale of RIFE nothing can be considered odd.  This thing has gone a million different directions while going no where at the same time.

Where Does Innovex/RIFE Go From Here?

All this being said I think RIFE has a great core of followers who love their putters…and I am sure they are looking forward to seeing where the brand goes moving forward.   Million dollar question is will Innovex as the new owner put them back on the path they were on years ago or will they go in a different direction all together.  And will they continue to innovate and make putters that consumers enjoy putting with now that Guerin is out of the picture.