The President of SRI Sports Ltd, Mr Hiroyuki Bamba announced that the Company, which is based in Kobe Japan, was officially listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on October 13th 2006.
SRI Sports Ltd was set up in July 2003 as the sporting goods arm of Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd and is the owner of the Srixon Golf brand.
Sumitomo Rubber, which started golf ball production in Kobe, Japan in 1930 has long been known as one of the world’s oldest and leading producers of golf balls. In order to improve the company’s brand position and technological advantage in the extremely competitive global market place, the management of SRI decided to strengthen the company’s capital by being listed on the stock exchange.
The management of SRI Sports Ltd plans to invest the capital gained from this IPO to strengthen its worldwide distribution network, R & D capability and overall brand awareness both in Japan and internationally.
First signs of this new strategy can be seen with the announcement that the company has signed 30 year old Swedish Ryder Cup star and current world number 12 ranked player – Henrik Stenson, with effect from November 29th 2006.
Stenson will be endorsing Srixon equipment and playing the Z-UR series of balls from this week’s Nedbank Challenge and joins current world number 2 and 2006 Vardon Trophy winner Jim Furyk and a tour staff of more than 250 internationally. He will be used extensively in marketing the Srixon brand internationally and in helping to increase sales of the company’s products.
Srixon www.srixon.co.uk