Unchartered waters for Hills as Dwyer departs

Ken Dwyer has left Audio Products Group, just three months after Hills acquired his business for a reported $15 million.

In this month’s CX, Hills Chief Operating Officer Brad Newton spoke about the acquisition. (Read interview here) “With APG, our goal right now is – we’ve got a lot of integration work to complete with SVL and Pacific Communications and DAS and Intek and OPS and so forth, so we’re focused quite heavily on that. Our view is we’re going to keep APG completely separated, running under Ken Dwyer’s direction. Business as usual.

CX:                        Yeah. Ken’s a good guy.

Brad Newton:  Ken’s a great guy and well respected in the audio industry, and we need to give him the support.

But today Ken Dwyer said his was only a three month consultancy agreement.

Here’s what he said:

“As I mentioned to you a few months ago I had an initial 3 month “consultancy agreement” with Hills that was not renewed when it expired on Monday.  Quite amicable with Hills.  They have their senior management team and of course Richard Neale at APG is very switched on, understands what needs to be done and can easily take the APG helm now.   I’ll especially miss my friends and colleagues at APG (a fantastic team as you know), supportive suppliers, great brands and of course our customer relationships – but otherwise it’s time for me to move on.”

What this does to staff morale at APG is anyone’s guess.

Image: Ken Dwyer