Black Diamond’s Parent Company Announces Sale of Pieps

In 2012, Salt Lake-based Black Diamond Equipment purchased Pieps, an Austrian company known for avalanche transceivers. At the time, Black Diamond’s reputation for climbing and alpine hard goods was well established, with their touring lines carving out a hearty niche with skins, skis, poles, boots, shovels, and probes. Pieps, on the other hand, offered BD a jumpstart into airbags and transceivers. In the ensuing decade, BD and Pieps forged ahead, developing new Jetforce packs and releasing a series of transceivers, branded as either BD or Pieps pieces, to the marketplace.

(For background, Black Diamond was purchased by the Clarus Corporation in 2010 for $90 million. Clarus is a publicly traded company; its brand portfolio includes Black Diamond, MAXTRAX, Rhino-Racks, and Rocky Mounts.) 

In their 2025 Q1 report, Clarus announced it had found a private buyer for Pieps. The filing states, “On May 8, 2025, BD European Holdings, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, entered into a Share Purchase and Transfer Agreement to sell Black Diamond Austria GmbH and its operating subsidiary, PIEPS GmbH, to a private investment firm for a total purchase price of €7,800 or approximately $8,400 including cash and debt.” The $8.4 million sale price is a hit. Pieps was purchased in 2012 for $10.4 million, amounting to a $2 million loss after 13 years of ownership. Clarus states the Pieps sale should close by the end of 2025’s third quarter.

Black Diamond and Pieps are legacy brands. BD’s story goes even further back to Chouinard Equipment—started by that Chouinard, forging pitons and carabiners. For brevity, the story goes like this: Chouinard Equipment was sued for a flawed harness design, and core employees, including Peter Metcalf, who took over as BD’s first CEO, purchased the company in 1989. BD has been in Salt Lake City since.