Company Overview

With 385 alleys in the U.S. and 15 abroad, AMF Bowling is the largest operator of bowling centers in the world. The company also manufactures and sells bowling center equipment, such as pinspotters, scoreboards, lanes, ball returns, and bowling alley furniture, as well as consumer products such as bowling balls, bowling bags, and bowling shoes. It also makes several lines of billiard tables. The company, incorporated in 1900 as American Machine and Foundry, originally manufactured machinery for the tobacco industry. In 1946, the founder’s son founder invented the pinspotter, and AMF expanded into leisure products. By the mid-1980s, the company had become unwieldy; it was acquired by CAA Industries for $225 million and reorganized. Goldman Sachs purchased AMF in 1996 for $1.4 billion and embarked on a program of rapid expansion, adding almost 100 new centers. But this rampant growth plunged the company into $1 billion in debt, and it filed Chapter 11 in 2001. In 2002, AMF emerged from Chapter 11 through a $350 million exit financing deal. After peaking with 100 overseas lanes, it has cut back to only 15 total, in Mexico and Japan. It also plans to unload its billiards operations.