BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — The popular Baton Rouge sports equipment company was sold for over $570 million.

According to the parent company, Compass Diversified Holdings (CODI), Marucci Sports was sold to Fox Factory Holding Corporation for $572 million. It is reported that the money will be used to pay down debts.

Marucci Sports offers equipment for baseball and softball teams, little league through collegiate teams.

Co-founder and CEO of Marucci Sports, Kurt Ainsworth, said the new ownership is expected to increase sales and promote growth.

“We are grateful for our partnership with the CODI team and look forward to further growth under FOX’s ownership,” said Ainsworth. “FOX’s enthusiast culture, coupled with its focus on driving growth through strong brands, highly engineered products and disruptive technologies fits well with our values and mission. We look forward to leveraging their innovation and growth success as we expand our sales reach and breadth. We thank CODI for their relentless support during our partnership.”

Marucci and Compass Diversified Holdings became partners during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The partnership came during limited sales of sports equipment, according to a release.

“We are very proud of the growth Marucci has seen under our ownership and feel fortunate to have been able to partner with the Marucci management team,” said Elias Sabo, CEO of Compass Diversified. “We acquired the business in April 2020 based on our confidence in Marucci’s brand and management team. This was at a time when few transactions were being completed due to the pandemic, yet our flexible capital structure allowed us to execute in times of uncertainty and generate value for our shareholders. Since then, the Marucci team has acted decisively, growing its core business and gaining share in new markets like fielding gloves and softball. Thank you to Kurt and the entire Marucci team for their contributions over the last several years, and we wish them nothing but continued success.”

The closing of the sale is expected to be complete by the end of November.