T-H Marine Lands Maurice Sporting Goods Marine Division

Huntsville-based T-H Marine Supplies has acquired First Source, the marine accessory division of Maurice Sporting Goods, one of the largest sporting goods distributors in the United States. First Source will operate as a standalone division of T-H Marine in Fort Myers, Fla.

“We’re thrilled to complete our largest revenue acquisition to date,” said T-H Marine CEO Jeff Huntley. “Our new First Source division will allow T-H Marine to expand into new product categories and continue to grow our product portfolio that we offer to both our OEM and Aftermarket customer bases.

“The First Source expertise also greatly strengthens our capabilities in aftermarket retail and e-commerce channels for our customers. We have built a strong platform for the past 45 years that is rooted in deep relationships with our customers, who depend on us for quality boating and fishing accessories. We look for great acquisitions like First Source that can really help us bring more value to our customers and continue to provide more awesome products for the boating and fishing enthusiasts that love our brands.”

First Source was founded in 2004 as a turn-key direct import source, with deep overseas relationships, that helps to design, manufacture, package, test, and supply companies with marine and paddle sports products. Their expertise is highly valued by their customers, particularly with co-founder Read Samples leading and utilizing his more than 30 years in the marine industry.

“We are blessed to be joining longtime customer T-H Marine, a solid and rapidly growing company that truly knows the marine and fishing accessory markets,” said Read Samples, General Manager of First Source. “T-H will allow our team to expand into more product categories becoming more meaningful to our customers, including more OEM product opportunities. The T-H Marine team shares our passion for bringing awesome, innovative products to market and for really taking care of our customers.”

First Source provides customers access to a broad range of design capabilities, procurement resources, products, packaging vendors, and logistics management services in a single source provider. T-H Marine has been a customer of First Source for many years along with many other manufacturers, distributors and major retailers.

This was T-H Marine’s eighth acquisition in the past decade contributing to its annual growth of 20 percent over that time, Huntley said of the 45-year-old family-owned company.

“We will continue working on more acquisitions and more organic product development to continue growing our stable of brands and our breadth of awesome products,” he said. “We have such great customers who continue to buy and believe in us and our brands … We hope we can keep this up and continue to find great products and brands that are ready to be launched or taken to the next level.”