Ovation Emerges From Chapter 11

Scottsdale, Ariz. — Ovation Audio/Video Specialists, the PRO Group member based in Indianapolis, reported at the group's spring meeting, here, that it has emerged from Chapter 11 protection, has taken on a new investor and created a new corporate parent.

Gary McCormick, president of Ovation, told TWICE that David Finley, a local Indiana investor with no consumer electronics experience, has joined himself and McCormick's partner Rob Lindstrom in creating a new parent company called Phoenix Audio/Video LLC that bought the existing assets of the old Ovation with an investment of $2.4 million.

McCormick said the deal closed in mid-March and that the chain, which retains the Ovation name, now operates five stores, down from the eight locations it had when it entered Chapter 11 last October. There are now three Indianapolis stores, one in Fort Wayne, Ind., and another in Cincinnati.

McCormick noted that the Indianapolis stores “always were successful” and that the Fort Wayne and Cincinnati locations were on the upswing prior to the Chapter 11 filing. The current five stores are 11,000 square feet to 12,000 square feet in size, he said.

One of the things the “new” Ovation will be tackling will be “more custom installation,” according to McCormick. “We were doing that anyway, but now we are going to intensify our efforts.” He said that the chain “never competed against the big-box retailers.”

Ovation is bringing a new twist to the table by targeting existing residential locations, retrofitting newer, 10- or 15-year-old homes with home theater systems for families who “aren't in the market for a $100,000 system. We continue to do that, but there are plenty of consumers out there with basements and family rooms just waiting for a home theater with a flat-screen HDTV.”