Did you hear?… Confluence is not selling Mad River Canoe

Rumors that Confluence is or will be selling Mad River Canoe (MRC) are simply not true, company president Bill Medlin told SNEWS®. “MRC is a key element of our growth strategy, and we have no plans to divest ourselves of the brand. We are planning on significant upgrades to the products next year and have just this past month moved the Royalex production from Vermont to North Carolina. Voyageur RF production was moved earlier in November. Composite canoe production will continue in Waitsfield only into the early part of January and will be moved as soon as the facility here is physically renovated. As you are also aware, we have just retained the services of Buff Grubb as brand manager for MRC,” says Medlin. SNEWS® suspects that the root of this latest rumor can be traced to an attempt several months ago by a group of Vermont employees to make a bid for the brand in an effort to keep MRC in Vermont. According to Medlin, the initial bid that Confluence received was approximately a third of what the company values the brand, so the bid was dismissed and nothing more has been heard.