HÖRSAM IS THE NEW NAME OF LIC AUDIO

HÖRSAM – 50 YEARS FOR BETTER HEARING

LIC Audio was owned by Getinge for ten years, but was all the time a different bird in the Getinge company-nest. In 2006 Getinge was approached by Bertil Allard, who was interested in buying LIC Audio. Bertil Allard had been the Divisional Manager for LIC Audio 1975-1981 and knew about the business, since then. Bertil had between 1982-2006 been involved in Camp Scandinavia (www.camp.se) first as a Managing Director and from 1996 as the owner. In 2006 Bertil left the company and Peter Allard, his youngest son, took over 100 % of ownership and management. Bertil was interested to continue his business career outside of Camp, to let his son run Camp Scandinavia fully along his own ideas.

Getinge agreed to sell LIC Audio and, in the meantime Kjell Alenius, Managing Director of Swedish Medtech (The umbrella organisation for all Medtech companies in Sweden), had joined forces with Bertil so Kjell acquired 9% and became the Managing Director and Bertil became the chairman of the company. Other members of the board are today, Per Widengren, also on the board of Camp Scandinavia, and Peter Allard.

Bertil’s and Kjell’s idea was to change and revitalise the company. Since the mid eighties the company had started to lose market share and innovation, so a change was a necessity for development. The company have had sales of 40 MSEK in the last 5 years and in early 2006 the service-contract in Jönköping was lost.

The business was originally in three parts.

• Installation of loop systems and other devices at home for people with hearing problems on prescription and payment from the hospital.
• Repair of hearing aids. During the peak years LIC Audio had over 100 employees and more than 30 centres for that operation. Today we are in four major regions with 20 technicians.
• The third part of the original business was products, mainly loop amplifiers but also wake up systems, telephones and other products.

Today former LIC Audio operates under the name “Hörsam” on the Swedish market, where “hör” is the word for hearing.

During the the three years with the new owners we have made a lot of changes in the company’s operation. The change of name is one and the opening and conversion into 4 retail stores and new distributors is another important development. All 4 outlets are combined with non-hearing “senior-products” which is a totally new concept on the market. The conversion of our web to a shop is another important step. We have also published a brand new catalogue of our product range and started advertising on a broader scale combined with many more exhibitions and shows. Our product range has been extended by some new products of our own and some new products from interesting suppliers from different countries and different product areas.

In Skåne, in the south of Sweden, the Region has decided to use private companies for fitting of hearing aids instead of the traditional fitting in hospitals. Hörsam is one of the major players in that brand new market segment. We now have four fitting facilities, of which two are combined with shops, and more facilities are planned to open. We have more than ten audiologist in Skåne and more to come. We are also extending our services to other areas than fitting of hearing aids as a service to our customers.

We are convinced that the hearing market in Sweden during the coming years will change a lot and we are going to be a major player on that market and our move in that direction has already started. The post-address to our head office is: Hörsam AB
LIC Audio AB
Box 603
SE-194 26 UPPLANDS VÄSBY
Visiting-address: Finvids väg 10B

Phone to customer-service: +46 8-590 00 460
Fax.: +46 8-590 00 490

Addresses och phonenumbers to LIC Audio's personnel at the head office is found here.