Gear
When browsing for new ski gear, you’ll encounter countless brands with seemingly endless options. To find the best equipment, it’s important to know what each company offers and how the brands differ. Like most industries, the ski world has seen many once-independent companies absorbed into a handful of large corporations. This isn’t inherently negative, but it is helpful to know who actually owns what, so you understand your real choices and not just the labels on the surface. Today, three companies sit above the rest and dominate ski-retail.
Elevate Outdoor Collective (Kohlberg & Company)
Elevate Outdoor Collective is the recent rebranding of what used to be K2-MDV. The “original” company in this now-massive conglomerate was K2, founded in 1962 with the then-innovative idea of building fiberglass skis. As K2 grew into a dominant ski-retail force, it gained the capital and influence to begin acquiring other brands. After purchasing Madshus (Nordica) in 1988, K2 spent the next 18 years picking up RIDE Snowboards, Tubbs Snowshoes, Atlas Snow-Shoe Co., Völkl/Marker, and finally Line Skis in 2006, before being acquired themselves by the Jarden Corporation.
Following that acquisition, Jarden continued expanding the collective, adding Backcountry Access and Dalbello, which led to the K2-MDV name (Marker, Dalbello, Völkl). In 2017, the private-equity firm Kohlberg & Company bought the entire winter-sports group from Jarden and rebranded it in 2022 to Elevate Outdoor Collective, which it remains today.
So what does this mean for your ski gear? Fortunately, despite being grouped under one corporate umbrella, each brand still researches, develops, and manufactures its products independently. Madshus skis are still made in Biri, Norway; Völkl skis in Straubing, Germany; Line and K2 in China. This autonomy preserves each brand’s quirks and keeps their products distinct.
Where the unification does appear is in business operations. Sales reps now represent the whole group rather than a single brand, which forces local shops to buy the entire fleet of products as opposed to the specific brands they prefer. Operational efficiency and finances are centralized—raw materials are bought in bulk and distributed to each company, and key technologies are shared. This not only lowers production costs but also gives each brand access to innovations their former competitors developed.
The downside comes from the private-equity model itself. These firms face intense pressure to maximize profit, which can hinder long-term product development at the cost of revenue. Niche, low-volume products are more likely to be cut in favor of mass-appeal items. Bulk-purchased materials may lower manufacturing costs but not necessarily retail prices. And within each company, “nonessential” but valuable staff may be removed to cut costs—as seen with the elimination of the U.S. Völkl management team.
Amer (Anta Sports)
Surprisingly, this company didn’t start in sports at all. Founded in 1950 as Amer-Tupakka, a tobacco company in Finland, it didn’t step into athletics until 1974 with the purchase of hockey-gear maker Koho. In 1989, Amer bought Wilson Sporting Goods, which specialized in ball sports. Their entrance into winter sports came in 1994 with the acquisition of Atomic.
From 2005 to 2018, Amer added several major winter-sports brands, beginning with a huge acquisition of Salomon (which also owned Arc’teryx), followed by Armada Skis and Peak Performance. In 2019, Amer was sold to Anta Sports—China’s largest sportswear company—for $5.2 billion. Amer then IPO’d on the New York Stock Exchange in 2024 but remains majority-owned by Anta at around 52% of shares.
- Related: Chinese Consortium Wants to Buy Maker of Salomon, Arc’teryx, Armada, and Atomic for $5.5-Billion
The brands under Anta/Amer still maintain their own headquarters and much of their manufacturing. Salomon continues to operate from their original locale in France while Atomic and Armada remain in Austria. Each company retains their creative liberties and pursues manufacturing the best product they can.
However, Anta’s influence shows up in its priorities. While many of these brands historically focused on skis, Anta has shifted the spotlight to apparel and footwear. Their strategy of “Big Brands, Big Channels, Big Countries” signals a strong push toward Chinese retail and fashion markets. This means companies like Salomon and Arc’teryx are leaning further into high-end outerwear and “gorpcore” streetwear.
From a revenue perspective, this makes sense, as winter gear is an inconsistent market often decided not by the quality of goods but global cultural and weather trends. Salomon, historically a ski manufacturer, generated over $1 billion in 2024 purely from their footwear. This isn’t to retract from the skis Salomon continues to put out, as its QST line is a worldwide top seller. But as softgoods grow, winter-sport hardgoods naturally take a smaller slice of the attention and resources. Ski production isn’t going away, but time, energy, and funding inevitably flow toward what makes the most money.
Rossignol Group (Altor Equity Partners)
The final major powerhouse in ski retail is Rossignol Group. Founded in 1907 in Voiron, France, Rossignol is one of the oldest ski manufacturers in the world. For the first 60 years, it produced solely its own skis and grew into a global leader. Their first major expansion came in 1967 with the purchase of French competitor Dynastar.
Rossignol dominated skis but wanted to round out its offerings. In 1989, it bought Lange, one of the top boot manufacturers. In 1994, it acquired Look Bindings, completing the ski-boot-binding trifecta. These weren’t small upgrades; Rossiginol bought the best factories and the best technology available. Its final pre-ownership-change acquisition was Risport, an ice-skate company.
In 2005, Quiksilver bought Rossignol, but after three disastrous years, Quiksilver sold the group at a huge loss. In 2013, the private-equity group Altor Equity Partners purchased Rossignol and remains the majority owner today. Since then, its only major acquisition has been Dale of Norway, a wool knitwear company, marking a shift toward apparel and softgoods to protect against the unpredictable winter-sports market.
So how independent are the individual brands? Today, it depends on the product. Look bindings are still made in their original French factory. Lange boots remain in Italy—though Rossignol boots are now made alongside them. Rossignol and Dynastar skis are largely produced in a single mega-factory in Spain, using the same machinery and materials.
Unified factories and shifts toward apparel don’t necessarily make the gear worse, but they do make it more similar. Lange boots still get the newest technology first, but Rossignol boots often receive the same innovations a year or two later. The same is true for skis: similarities increase as manufacturing merges. In the shift to apparel, similar to Anta/Amer, there are finite resources within a company, and private equity is ultimately trying to maximize profit, not make skiers happy.
Many seemingly independent ski companies are actually branches of just a few much larger corporations. Knowing which brands share ideas, factories, or materials helps skiers understand where real variation in gear actually exists. Testing skis from a variety of brands is the best way to discover the specific niche each skier thrives in. Smaller independent companies may provide the unique, perfectly tuned skis that bigger brands overlook. Choosing skis based on how they ride—not simply the logo on them—not only improves the experience on snow, but also pushes the industry to keep innovating.
