News

New distributor for Snowbee as MD announces retirement plans

Anthony Hawkswell November 15, 2022

Plymouth-based Snowbee UK’s Managing Director, Russell Weston, has revealed exclusively to Angling International that after nearly 39 years at the helm, he is stepping aside and will hand over control to a new partner.

From January 1st next year the exclusive Snowbee distributor for Europe will be the SM Group (Europe), known simply as ‘SMG’.

Weston, 67, (main picture) said: “Having built the company and the Snowbee brand from nothing to where it is today makes me immensely proud of the achievement, but the time has come to step aside and spend more time with my family and actually get to do some fishing!

“I’m very pleased to transfer the Snowbee brand to SMG’s safe hands. I’ll be staying on in a part-time consultancy role to help with the seamless transition of the business to SMG. With the rest of the employees at Snowbee UK transferring to SMG without any job losses, it is very much business as usual.”

SMG, also based in Plymouth, has been associated with Snowbee since 2016 and grown to become its largest customer. Better known as the UK’s largest marine electronics distributor with over 60 quality brands, SMG also has products for the fishing, watersports, outdoor and equestrian markets.

Ray Badminton (above), Managing Director of SMG, said: “We already have a long history with Snowbee with great symmetry between each companies’ values, staff dedication and company structure. Equally important is the growth potential we see for the brand, offering its products to a selection of SMG’s 800 trade accounts. We also plan to return to Snowbee’s roots by launching new products in the equestrian and pet markets.”

A bonus for Snowbee’s current trade accounts is that they will also now have access to all SMG’s other brands allowing them to increase sales with brands that include: