(Bloomberg) -- When the puck drops on the new season of the National Hockey League next week, a major brand that equips some of the top players will be getting a new owner.
Swedish buyout firm Altor Equity Partners has agreed to buy a majority stake in CCM Hockey, the maker of Tacks and JetSpeed hockey gear favored by stars Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid.
Stockholm-based Altor is acquiring the business from Canada’s Birch Hill Equity Partners Management Inc., it said in a statement reviewed by Bloomberg News.
Terms of the deal, expected to close by year end, weren’t disclosed.
CCM is valued at C$500 million ($371 million) to C$600 million, according to people familiar with the matter. That’s up from the $110 million that Adidas AG sold it to Birch Hill for in 2017.
Earlier this year, Birch Hill began working with investment bank Robert W. Baird & Co. to assist in the sales process, the people added, asking not to be identified because the details aren’t public.
The company will remained headquartered in Montreal.
Altor, which owns winter-sports brand Rossignol, was attracted to CCM for how it innovates its sticks, helmets and skates to cater to all levels of hockey players, from youth to professionals.
“Some of the very best names in the hockey world use the CCM equipment,” Andreas Kallstrom Safwerang, partner and head of the consumer sector at Altor, said in an interview. “CCM has been at the forefront of innovation for years and there’s so much more opportunity to be extracted from the iconic brand.”
CCM Chief Executive Officer Marrouane Nabih said a major focus of the company is women’s hockey, which he called the fastest-growing category. It sponsors Canadian star Sarah Nurse and the US’s Kendall Coyne Schofield.
“We want to see our girls actually stop wearing the wrong gear, which is their brother’s gear, and get into the game with gear that fits them better,” he said. He added that about 10% of hockey players worldwide are women, a number he’d like to see get to 50% within 10 years.
This deal will also help the hockey firm better penetrate in current markets — Canada, the US and Europe — while also looking into different regions for growth, Nabih said.
The biggest revenue-generating product for hockey equipment is sticks, because of the high replacement rate, he said. The second biggest is skates, where CCM is “investing massively,” he added. It’s also looked to expand outside of hockey skates when it bought figure skating brand Jackson Ultima in 2021.
“We want to make sure that we win in all categories of product when it comes to hockey, and eventually we can think of the extension of some of our categories of product or protectives or helmets,” Nabih said.
CCM’s largest rival, Bauer Hockey, also changed hands this week ahead of the start of the NHL regular season in North America on Oct. 8.
Canada’s Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. announced Monday that it will acquire control of the owner of Bauer from the Desmarais family’s Sagard Holdings Inc.
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