April 26, 2022
DMF Lighting Founders Take Equity Stake in HK Lighting
Companies are tight-lipped about specifics. Here’s what we know.
SOMEWHERE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA – DMF Lighting and HK lighting are now sister companies. Or possibly half-sisters. Well, we’re not exactly sure the new fiscal arrangement – as each privately held California lighting manufacturer seems to have multiple owners, with an apparently significant portion of each company now having overlapping and common ownership.
Susie Minton, former Marketing Director for DMF Lighting and current Director of Marketing for HK Lighting shared the following:
“The founding family of DMF Lighting has an ownership interest in HK Lighting. Mr. Hiroshi Kira will continue to build on HK Lighting's strong foundation of providing innovative and unique lighting products to the architectural outdoor and landscape lighting community. I'm excited to be here at HK Lighting and working alongside this talented team.”
According to the DMF Lighting website, Mark Danesh and his wife, Faye, founded DMF in their living room in 1988. Their son, Michael Danesh, is cited as DMF’s Chief Operating Officer and reportedly leads much of DMF Lighting’s day-to-day business.
DMF Lighting, based in Los Angeles County, is best known for making downlights and recessed housings – while also providing cylinder and surface-mounted products, too. DMF markets its products to be high quality and feature rich, while offering them at low-to-midrange price points.
HK Lighting Group, located in Ventura County – 60 miles from DMF Lighting, was founded in 2005 by Mr. Hiroshi Kira. The brand is best known for producing highly-engineered architectural outdoor and landscape lighting products.
Both DMF Lighting and HK Lighting were respectfully tight-lipped about the particulars of the ownership structure and the transaction(s), but some lighting people we talked with outside of the companies speculated that the move was part of an eventual exit strategy for Mr. Hiroshi Kira, of HK Lighting – who was mentioned in Minton’s statement as continuing with the company.
Lighting agents and others have been told that there are no immediate plans for widespread agent changes or consolidation.
