October 22, 2025
Feit Quietly Acquires Cree Lighting's Residential Portfolio
Cree brand divided: commercial, residential and components now operate under 3 different companies
Sometime this past summer (no one’s quite saying when) Cree Lighting’s residential lamp portfolio ceased being Cree Lighting’s at all. The brand, long associated with LED innovation and a certain workmanlike appeal in home centers and contractor vans alike, now belongs to Feit Electric. Or more precisely, “Cree Lighting Home” does.
The deal wasn’t secret, exactly. But it wasn’t public either. No announcement. No hoopla. No flurry of press releases or trade coverage. Just a new tagline—“A Brand of Feit Electric” — quietly appearing on a website in August. That site, CreeLightingHome.com, was first registered in June 2024, suggesting that the carve-out had been in motion for a year or longer.
What was acquired? "The Cree Lighting name, trademark and brand" — specifically for the North American residential market, Feit Electric President Alan Feit told Inside Lighting in a direct statement. He added that the commercial business continues on, separately and independently. As for details? A “confidential agreement between the two parties” is all either side will say.
If you blinked, you missed it. And that seems to be the point.
Notably, the deal appears to cover only Cree Lighting’s residential lamp business. Feit, which already has a full bench of downlights, didn’t acquire Cree’s retrofit or new construction offerings. Those products, once considered flagship innovations, still linger on the commercial Cree Lighting website, tagged with warnings about low inventory and looming discontinuation.
It’s an anticlimactic fade-out for a product line that once carried real weight. Back in 2008, Cree Inc. spent more than $77 million to acquire LLF (LED Lighting Fixtures, Inc.) an early leader in the recessed LED downlight market. That acquisition was bold at the time, even visionary. Seventeen years later, the remnants are quietly being phased out, left to expire in inventory footnotes.
A Brand in the Aisles, Not the Headlines
Feit, a steady presence in the LED lamp world, has built its business on a vast portfolio—smart lamps, downlights, RGBW color changers, contractor-grade lamps, and the sort of retail packaging designed to catch a homeowner’s eye in aisle seven of Lowe’s. The acquisition of Cree’s residential line adds a premium layer to that portfolio, and probably a useful brand halo too. That’s “halo” with a lower case “h.”
Alan Feit, in a weekend LinkedIn post that seemed to double as a quiet clarification during Cree Lighting’s October furlough, described it as a “long overdue” update. “We’re redefining what great lighting can do in the home,” he wrote. It was a carefully worded post, subtly drawing a line between his Cree Lighting and the other one — the one that had just shut down for three weeks. That news rattled the industry and left some wondering whether the entire Cree Lighting brand was in trouble.
Three Cree Offshoots, Three Separate Futures
The once-unified Cree empire is now split in three. There’s Cree LED, now part of Penguin Solutions, focused on semiconductor components and high-performance chips. There’s Cree Lighting, the commercial fixtures manufacturer, owned by private equity firm, ADLT. And there’s this new third sibling — Cree Lighting Home — spun off, rebranded, and quietly folded into Feit Electric’s house of brands.
COMMERCIAL LUMINAIRES
Ideal Industries (2019-2023)
ADLT (2023 - present)
RESIDENTIAL LAMPS
Ideal Industries (2019-2023)
ADLT (2023-2025)
Feit Electric (2025 - present)
COMPONENTS
Penguin Solutions
(2021 - present)
For now, the only bridge between Cree Lighting (home) and Cree Lighting (commercial) appears to be a pair of conspicuous menu links. The CreeLightingHome.com site links visitors to the commercial Cree Lighting page. The commercial site returns the favor with a “Residential” link back to Feit’s domain. Both links feel contractual.
Until this article gets picked up by search engines, there’s not much online about Cree Lighting & Feit — just a new domain, a few subtle branding tweaks, and, somewhat ironically, old headlines from 2015 and 2016, when Cree Inc. and Feit Electric were suing each other over LED patents.
"Our broader company strategy is to power our house of brands, each with unique identities and a shared commitment to innovation, design, and performance. Cree Lighting represents the premium side of that vision. Our goal with Cree Lighting products is to blend cutting-edge technology with thoughtful design."
"Our family of brands currently includes Feit Electric, Cree Lighting, LIFX, and Universal Security Instruments. Each brand brings its own strengths and solutions to meet different segments of the market, from residential and commercial lighting to design-forward smart home essentials to dependable home safety. "
— Alan Feit, President, Feit Electric
So, the deal is done. There’s no disclosed price. No formal announcement. Not even a press release to timestamp the handoff. The most telling detail about this acquisition might be how quietly it happened — and how few in the industry realized it had.
