CCM’s new owners want to inspire girls and women to play more hockey, which could help extend the venerable Montreal maker of hockey gear’s reach to a fresh batch of consumers.

CCM is being sold to Swedish private equity firm Altor with the participation of CCM’s existing management in a deal worth about $450 million. It’s expected to close toward the end of 2024. While the company has done well under existing private equity owner Birch Hill—revenue has reportedly doubled from the $300 million CCM produced in 2016, its last full year under prior owner Adidas—the new stakeholders feel there is untapped potential in the 125-year-old brand.

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“The brand is bigger than the company,” said CCM CEO Marrouane Nabih in a video call from his Montreal office. “We have so much equity that is not yet materialized. We see a lot of opportunities here to change the world of hockey on many fronts.”

One area of emphasis is expanding the participation of women in hockey. “Women are only 10% of hockey players. It should be 50%. We’ve been investing into that and we want to make sure we’re growing the game.” CCM intends to expand its support of girls and women hockey as a way of expanding the market, and it has been growing its women-specific hockey gear line FTW this decade. “None of our competition have been investing massively there; we decided it’s important.” The launch of the Professional Women’s Hockey League this year should also boost women’s hockey, he said.

Another potential area of expansion is into apparel. When Adidas sold off CCM in mid-2017, it retained the CCM apparel brand business (though dropped the name) which was the then-supplier to the NHL. While not committing to a return of apparel just yet, Nabih and Altor’s partner heading consumer product investing, Andreas Källström, suggest it could be one of the areas they look to.

“The brand has attractiveness in other categories which may not be products you use on the ice but rather in other situations,” said Källström, also on the video call. “In addition, there are geographical pockets where there could be more growth than in the traditional cold parts of Canada, U.S. and northern Europe.”

The majority ownership by Altor could help CCM expand its retail reach. Altor has about $12 billion in assets under management, with investments in 53 companies currently. While not a sports-specific investor, the fund has experience in sports gear makers and sports retail. The fund owns the ski brand Rossignol and is a large investor in publicly traded XXL, the Nordic countries’ largest sporting goods retailer. Altor previously owned outdoor brand Helly Hansen, now a division of big box retailer Canadian Tire, and bought another outdoor brand public, RevolutionRace.

“A fair share of what we do are brand stories and a focus on leisure, athletics or an active lifestyle,” Källström said. As an example of how Altor likes to expand brands into logical categories, the executive pointed to Marshall, the renowned guitar amplifier business that has extended under Altor into home and portable speakers, headphones and, maybe less logically, into gin and craft beer too.

Hold off on plans to stock the fridge with CCM lager just yet. Nabih said one of the significant reasons CCM teamed with Altor is the fund’s experience and support of technology by its portfolio companies. The tech side could help CCM cement its dominance in top-level hockey gear, for one—the executive noted CCM is the leader in seven of the eight categories of on-ice gear an NHLer uses, including sticks, helmets and protectives like pads. CCM is second in skates among the 707 NHL player population, he said.

“I’ve had the opportunity to meet with many [bidder] groups the past couple of months because there is a lot of interest around CCM, and I believe we are in the best possible hands [with Altor],” Nabih added. “We heavily invested in product innovation and it proved to be the right strategy. Now the excitement is about how can we bring those foundations and build growth in the future.”

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