QubicaAMF Worldwide (QubicaAMF), the world’s largest manufacturer of bowling products, is shaking things up once again, with its announcement that the Qubica legacy partners, Roberto Vaioli, Luca Drusiani, Emanuele Govoni, Guido Sorba, Pat Ciniello, Frank Mascadri and Rich Albright, have finalized a transaction with Bowlmor AMF to acquire their ownership in the company. After nearly a decade since the creation of QubicaAMF, the company will now operate under single private ownership.
Qubica Worldwide (Qubica), which was founded in 1993 with 10,000 USD of capital by three co-founders, Roberto Vaioli, Luca Drusiani and Emanuele Govoni, quickly became a success. The company installed equipment on over 35,000 lanes in more than 50 countries, becoming the industry’s technology leader, and the third largest bowling products company in the world, in less than 12 years.
Commenting, Emanuele Govoni, formerly CEO of Qubica Worldwide and QubicaAMF Chief Marketing Officer, and now the CEO of QubicaAMF said:
“With this transaction we are going back to our roots, and believe we are positioning our company, and the entire bowling industry, for a new era. We are extremely honoured after 20 years of experience in this great industry, to now have the opportunity to take the legendary AMF brand along with Qubica, to the next level. Since the inception of Qubica in 1993, we have been incredibly lucky and blessed and are very thankful our journey in the bowling industry will continue for many years to come. To make this happen, our group decided to invest our own money. We are all in for this industry and believe in this company, in our customers and in our many great employees around the world. We are very excited about the potential and the opportunities around the future of bowling. Bowling has great fundamentals as a business, as an entertainment activity and as a sport. We will work hard to contribute to the creation of a revitalized and re-energized industry where fun, innovation and transformation will spur new economic growth for our customers around the world.”
Pat Ciniello, newly created Chairman of the Board of QubicaAMF, added:
“Over the last few years, while many companies have been adversely affected by the global slowdown, QubicaAMF has continued to aggressively invest in its product lines to dramatically increase our customer’s success. Products such as BES X, the new Harmony Line and the XLi Edge have been the result of nearly 5 years of continued investment. I personally have continued to believe in bowling, building two new bowling entertainment centres. QubicaAMF is uniquely positioned, and fully dedicated, to continue on the path of delivering the most innovative, high quality products to make our customers more profitable and make bowling a fun and top of mind entertainment destination to attract millions of new consumers.”
QubicaAMF has revolutionized the bowling industry many times over with its product innovations and industry-firsts beginning with the first mass produced automatic pinspotter introduced by AMF in 1946, the world’s first Surlyn coated bowling pin, the first mechanical bumper system, its best-selling Conqueror Pro center management system, the XLi EDGE Pinspotter, BES X, the world’s only Bowler Entertainment System, and most recently the new, turn-key Harmony Furniture, Ball Return and Masking System Line.
QubicaAMF remains the largest bowling products company in the world with 500 employees, technicians and sales representatives globally, and worldwide headquarters and manufacturing facilities in Richmond, VA, European headquarters and software development in Bologna, Italy, and pin manufacturing operations in Lowville, NY. The company has sales offices in 12 countries, a distributor network with worldwide reach and maintains the largest R&D team in the industry.