Bowers & Wilkins, THE high-end in performance audio, has begun early-stage talks with Sound United LLC — parent company to Denon, Polk Audio, Marantz, Definitive Technology, HEOS, Classé and Boston Acoustics — to explore opportunities for the two businesses to combine.

“Discussions between Bowers & Wilkins and Sound United are at an early stage with a view to consolidating our premium brands into a new group offering even better consumer opportunities. If our discussions are successful, combining Bowers & Wilkins’ engineering and manufacturing expertise in the premium category with the breadth of resources and capability of Sound United could certainly be a transformative step for both brands. It would allow the Bowers & Wilkins team even greater opportunities to focus on what we do best — building the industry’s finest loudspeakers,” said Geoff Edwards, CEO of Bowers & Wilkins.

Should the two brands decide to move forward, Sound United would acquire all worldwide third-party distribution and licensing agreements under which Bowers & Wilkins premium audio products are currently sold. This does not affect any of the existing Bowers & Wilkins product portfolio or any of the products Bowers & Wilkins currently distributes or current global operations.

No specifics on when or how this would happen. We will update the story as we receive more information.