The Story of Penn Reels: The Philadelphia Loft Reel Now Owned by Private Equity

In 2019 Penn Reels, started by German-born machinist Otto Henze in a rented Philadelphia loft in 1932, changed hands as one line in a roughly $1.3 billion sale of Pure Fishing to private-equity firm Sycamore Partners. This is how a reel built to be repaired forever got there, and whether the reel itself survived the trip. It runs from Depression-era pier reels through the Senator, the Squidder, the Jigmaster 500, the lever-drag International and the bail-less 704Z, and through seventy-five years of Henze family ownership on Hunting Park Avenue. Then comes the chain that followed: K2, Jarden, Newell Brands and Sycamore, four owners in twelve years. At the center of it all is the numbered exploded parts diagram, the one thing none of those owners could buy, and the reason a 1950s Jigmaster on a New Jersey party boat still hasn't been told.