Edelbrock Owner Acquires COMP Performance Group

The owner of Edelbrock LLC is acquiring COMP Performance Group and relocating Edelbrock’s distribution center to Memphis, TN where COMP is based.

Edelbrock will maintain a major presence in Torrance, CA, company officials said.

Edelbrock is owned by Evanston, IL-based private equity group Industrial Opportunity Partners. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Edelbrock and COMP Performance Group will continue to operate as separate entities, and the management teams there will stay in place. Don Barry is president and CEO of Edelbrock. Chris Douglas is the president of COMP Performance.

This deal pairs Edelbrock—perhaps the most iconic brand in the performance aftermarket—with several other key performance brands, including: COMP Cams, FAST, TCI Automotive, ZEX Nitrous Oxide Systems, Racing Head Service (RHS), Powerhouse Products, Inglese, VThunder, and COMP Cams GoParts.

In addition to gaining internal operational efficiencies, one of the key benefits of this deal will be the ability to develop new, more robust power packages for both street and race applications, said Cary Redman, Edelbrock’s vice president of brand sales, in a telephone interview.

For example, FAST fuel injection systems could be integrated with Edelbrock’s EFI intake manifolds, which opens the door for Edelbrock to provide multi-port fuel injection solutions for all applications—not just small block Chevy engines, Redman said.

“We have a lot of cylinder heads,” he said. “There are a lot of applications we don’t necessarily have cam profiles for. But now we do from COMP.”

While it’s going to be business as usual for fans of Edelbrock and the COMP Performance family of brands, officials at each of these companies will be searching for opportunities to combine the expertise of their like-minded in-house enthusiasts to share resources and learn from each other to build new things.

“What we’re going to be doing is looking for synergies,” Redman said. “Opportunities to cross-promote and integrate products across the entire family.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg.”