Jacobsen finds a missing puzzle piece in Dixie Chopper

Jacobsen’s president, David Withers announced the acquisition of Dixie Chopper at the 2014 Golf Industry Show. Photo: Jacobsen

11 a.m. on February 6th of the 2014 Golf Industry Show was a busy hour. Not only did Golfdom announce this year’s Herb Graffis Businessperson of the Year winner (Jim Rattigan, featured in this month’s issue), but at the same time just a few booths over an announcement came from Jacobsen.

Finalized only moments before, Jacobsen’s president, David Withers, stood in the middle of a booth coated in orange to detail the acquisition of Dixie Chopper, an Indiana-based manufacturer of zero-turn mowers for the lawn care industry. The acquisition had been in the works for a while, but was finished up that day. After addressing the crowd, Withers took a moment to share the details.

“We always felt that these were good products and whilst there were other companies out there, we felt that this actually was a better product… you could see that the fundamentals were there. They really understood rotary mowing, they really understood zero-turn… and we were excited about the product from the first time we saw it,” Withers said.

Withers, now in his third year as president of Jacobsen, said the acquisition is a part of the plan to grow the company. Future acquisitions are also possible, he said, but for now, he’s excited about Dixie Chopper, his first.

“I felt that if you really wanted to grow the business and make ourselves a larger business, with a broader sweep of products and a broader portfolio of markets that we serve, that we would need to be in that zero-turn market. So, for the last six months or a year, we have been looking around for what opportunities there might be,” Withers told Golfdom.

The zero-turn capabilities of the Dixie Chopper product made it a good grab for Jacobsen according to Withers.

Gathering Dixie Chopper into the Jacobsen fold also allowed Withers to fill in some of what he saw as missing pieces. “There was no product overlap. Some of these companies have a broader product range and there would’ve been an overlap with Jacobsen. There was zero overlap. Where our products finish, theirs start.”

The future will not see too many alterations, though the two companies were legally joined on the 6th. Transitions that will occur however, will be helped along by Jacobsen staff members who are already at Dixie Chopper in Indiana.

“We’ll be keeping the front end of the business, customer care, marketing, sales separate. We’ll have different sales guys and customer support people because I think it’s a different market and we’ve got to make sure we act accordingly. Keep the front end of the business separate, but the back end we will integrate,” Withers said.

Despite this new acquisition that falls outside of the golf market, Withers wanted to reassure everyone that Jacobsen has not altered their focus.

“Golf is still our core market and we’re not going to lose focus on making sure that we continue to improve in the golf market and that we treat every customer how they want to be treated. Our goal is to continue the momentum we’ve built in the last couple years where so many more customers are looking at us today than they were in the past.”