SGM
In 2025, after a transformative year in which it was acquired by Golden Sea, SGM celebrated its 50th anniversary. To mark the occasion, arc travelled to the Danish town of Aarhus to meet with the SGM team, take a tour of its facilities, and find out what the company has planned for the future under its new ownership
A company celebrating its 50th anniversary could, and should, be a moment of celebration; a chance to take stock of where you have come from since your humble beginnings, while looking to the future and planning where your next steps will take you. However, for Danish lighting brand SGM, it is a celebration that marked the beginning of an exciting new chapter.
In August 2024, the company was placed into administration, putting the livelihood of everyone at its Aarhus head office at risk. But, from out of the darkness, SGM was reignited, becoming acquired by Golden Sea, a globally recognised leader in lighting manufacturing. In just two weeks, Golden Sea took the company on board, and retained its building, manufacturing lines, and most importantly, all of the staff, meaning that SGM could continue onwards and celebrate its landmark anniversary this year.
It’s a connection that was not formed out of nowhere, as Golden Sea – itself celebrating 30 years in business in 2025 – has a longstanding history with SGM. As far back as 2004, Mr Jiang Weikai, President and Owner of Golden Sea, visited the original SGM factory in Italy.
As a company, Golden Sea has specialised in entertainment and stage lighting since its inception in 1995, owing to Jiang’s experience in computer engineering and automated controls after university.
With a goal to combine his technology background with art and culture, his aim for Golden Sea was, as he told arc at the company’s Guangzhou headquarters earlier this year, “to make the stage better, and to make life more beautiful”.
Originally working within China, Golden Sea began to expand further afield, at first into Asia, and then reaching Europe in the early 2000s, taking part in industry events such as Plasa, Prolight + Sound, and LDI. Shortly after this, Golden Sea established a connection with SGM, assisting in manufacturing its products from 2004 until 2014.
Speaking of SGM as a company, Jiang said: “They’re working really hard, doing really good work in combining entertainment technology with architectural products, and changing many traditional ideas of what lighting products can do. True innovation, in our opinion.
“We have 20 years of experience with SGM, and they have a good command of the industry, so we decided to invest, and in 2024, became the 100% owner.
“We think that lighting is one of the core elements to make people’s lives better, lighting up spaces where they live, and not only where they go, and we believe that with SGM, they have the technology, the platform, and the knowhow to do very good things in the future. Now, with our supply chain at Golden Sea’s three factories, and a full capacity totalling more than 1,800 people, we have the capabilities to assist SGM globally. By continuing to use new technology, based on the original background and DNA of the company, we think that SGM, together with our mother company Golden Sea, can provide the best architectural lighting in the world.”
There is a natural, emotional connection between SGM and Golden Sea, and Jiang is enthusiastic to continue the story, now that SGM is part of Golden Sea’s broader portfolio of brands, which also includes entertainment lighting manufacturer Ayrton, one of the global leaders in professional entertainment lighting.
Keen to learn more about this relationship and SGM’s new vision for the future under Golden Sea, arc travelled to the Danish town of Aarhus to take a tour of the brand’s facilities, and meet with its senior management team.
During our visit, Christopher Agius Ferrante, CEO of SGM and Vice President of Golden Sea, dove deeper into the conversations that surrounded the acquisition.
“Mr Jiang likes football, so he came over for the European Championships in 2024. Whenever he travels, he likes to visit factories and companies, both to get to know people, and also with an eye for acquisition. We got in touch with SGM to see if they would be interested in saying hello, and Ulrik Jakobsen, Director of Operations, got back to us and invited us here.
“We were very impressed by what we saw; the building felt nice, well laid out, the manufacturing line was very impressive. From there, I went on vacation, and came back to an email from SGM’s lawyer with an option to acquire the company and all its assets. We were essentially given two weeks to make an offer, which we did.”
And so, from an innocuous visit in July 2024, less than two months later, SGM was part of the Golden Sea family.
It is not the first time that there has been a shift in leadership for a company that has changed significantly since its humble beginnings in 1975. Originally based in Italy and founded by Gabriele Giorgi and Mauricio Guidi, the company’s name – Società Gabriele Maurizio (SGM) – reflected a close partnership that fuelled the pair’s vision of technological advancement.
Giorgi, an electronics engineer with years of experience in manufacturing electronic circuits, recognised early on the immense potential of the emerging lighting market. In the early days, the company combined cutting-edge technology with in-house development to create fixtures such as the Galileo, Palco, and Giotto series, which stood out for their performance and durability.
From the 1980s to the 2000s, SGM initially produced lighting effects for the nightclub scene in Italy.
However, as this market began to decline, the company made a pivotal decision to shift its focus; recognising the growth potential of the professional lighting market, SGM redirected its resources towards designing intelligent lights, setting the stage for future growth in the professional sector.
In late 2010, Peter Johansen – originally founder of Martin Professional – joined SGM in Italy as head of R&D. In 2012, he purchased the company and relocated it to Denmark. Since then, the brand has expanded internationally, with products gaining recognition for their performance, reliability, and ability to withstand the harshest conditions, including in 2013, being the first company to develop and sell a fully IP-rated moving head – something that at the time was seen as true disruption to an entertainment industry trying to find its foothold after the global financial crisis.
From these beginnings in the entertainment lighting sector, SGM as a brand has developed into a strong player in architectural lighting for permanent outdoor installs, taking the model of sturdy, good quality, exterior-rated construction and transferring this to a new range of architectural fixtures.
Willem De Plus, Product Manager for SGM’s Architectural division, speaks more on this development: “After the acquisition from Peter Johansen, we came out with the world’s first IP-rated moving head. We started doing IP-rated wash lights, making products that were very rugged, and here we saw great potential to work on cruise ships. This meant taking product technologies from our entertainment range, stripping them back, removing control displays, reducing the amount of connectors and cables, and meanwhile investigating corrosion resistance; we developed a very strong treatment that would last on cruise ships, that today offers a full six-year warranty.
“At first, we developed an entertainment product, and then we created what we called a Permanent Outdoor Installation (POI) version of it. Firstly, for cruise ships, but it worked very well, and through our connections in the US, particularly in Las Vegas, we had opportunities to use these products on buildings as well. It made sense because if they were built to last on cruise ships, they would also last on land as well. The Circa casino in Las Vegas is a brilliant example of exactly this, and continues to dazzle visiting spectators today.”
While original forays into architectural lighting were, as De Plus explains, modifications of products designed towards entertainment, this has since organically evolved, particularly as architectural lighting designers become more interested in dynamic lighting and media façades for their external lighting projects.
“A cool thing for us, when you move into façade lighting and exterior architectural lighting from entertainment-style products, a lot of the technology is already there, and the technology that we have developed over the past 12 years is now completely usable. Our primary colour mixing, colour calibration, and creating white light through RGBW sources dates back to our P5 entertainment fixtures; our Dry Tech technology, which we have a patent on, features active dehumidification, actively drawing moisture out of the fixture but keeping the air in. All of this technology we have been developing over time, and it still adds so much value.”
As well as building on its existing tech, in a post-acquisition world, SGM is benefitting from the extended pool of R&D engineers that comes with being a part of Golden Sea – expanding from in-house R&D engineers based in Aarhus, to a team of more than 200 at Golden Sea. Alongside this, Ferrante explains that the full engineering process, across the entire supply chain, is “completely internal”.
“We do not use external optics consultants, we do not go to others for firmware; there are thermal engineers, optic engineers, firmware, software, mechanical industrial design, we even make our own glass optics – we have the entire gamut.
“As part of Golden Sea’s overall business strategy, we want to own the core technology that lives within our lights. Optics is one of these technologies. So, we have an optics factory where we do all the polishing, grinding, coating in-house, and we take the same approach across all factors, including mechanical design and thermal design.”
With such extensive in-house capabilities in place, what this means is that, for SGM, the speed in which new product lines can be developed, sampled, and brought to market, has rapidly increased. Within the past year alone, the company has conceived, trialled, and launched three new architectural product lines in its POI series – impressive by architectural lighting standards, but Ferrante is used to the speed at which Golden Sea can work.
“With an R&D team totalling more than 200 people, we can do everything faster. At Golden Sea, we’ve got an entire, 4,000sqm R&D workshop. This is only a fraction of the 160,000sqm Golden Sea facilities. This means that when you want to mill out a new product sample, it is done in two days’ time. If you see a prototype and don’t like it, you can ask for changes, and when you go back the next day, it has gone through the engineering process, been reworked, and a new prototype is ready to view.”
Ulrik Jakobsen, Director of Operations at SGM, adds: “The role of R&D is changing. We’ve always done everything in-house, from the first pencil sketches, right to the finished, manufactured product, and if there are any problems, everyone is two minutes away. Now, we’re 4,000 kilometres apart, and the R&D department here is now collaborating with Golden Sea. It’s a new challenge, but one that has been successful. And while SGM typically launched 2-3 products a year, Golden Sea can launch 10 product lines a year – it’s impressive what they are capable of.”
A further benefit of this combined, international R&D process, De Plus adds, is the combination of cultures from Denmark and China, and how these can combine in incredibly effective ways.
“Typically, people here in Denmark are trained to be more creative, less ‘by the book’, where engineering is based on finding creative solutions. The people here are insanely good at this; our colour collaboration, as an example, is pure innovation.
“What the Golden Sea engineers bring is a persistence in ensuring that everything is super correct, so that when you do develop something that is creative, they can turn it into something real and manufacturable, that you can create by the thousands. And they can do it way more efficiently than we ever could. It’s a lot of fun, because we have the best of both worlds, and it opens up so many new possibilities.”
On the subject of new possibilities, since the acquisition, SGM has been busy assembling a veritable who’s-who of lighting talent to join the team as it looks to expand on its architectural lighting offering. From local talent Leif Orkelbog-Andresen and Sascha Johnsen, who joined the team 12 months ago as Global Sales Director and Marketing Manager respectively, to Gé Hulsmans and Christopher Burridge, who both joined the company in 2025 as Global Specification Manager and EMEA Account Manager. Most recently, Jesse Lilley was appointed by SGM as Managing Director in October, just two weeks before arc’s visit to Aarhus.
Reflecting on these new appointments, Ferrante says: “We’re very, very lucky. We’re a Danish lighting company, and to have Leif based down the road in Copenhagen, Jesse and Sascha literally round the corner in Aarhus, if you were sitting at a drawing board trying to find people to inject new life into an organisation, to have this level of quality here, you couldn’t make it up.
“Having Golden Sea in the background may help in giving people the confidence that the business is well looked after and well-funded. Having been through a similar situation with Ayrton already, there is a blueprint for it, in that Golden Sea was always very clear about growing the team at Ayrton and not just moving operations overseas. We are doing the same here.”
De Plus, who has been with SGM for eight years, adds: “It is cool to see the people that are joining the team, not just the amount of people, but the specific hires we are making – Chris Burridge and Gé Hulsmans are just two examples – and Jesse joining, being able to tick the boxes of living in Denmark, coming from architectural lighting, when I was told they were joining, I thought ‘this is amazing’.”
Lilley’s experience in architectural lighting is extensive, having worked with the likes of Martin Professional, Lumenpulse, and on the design side, Speirs Major Light Architecture, over the past 20 years.
During arc’s visit to Aarhus, he told us of his excitement at being a part of this new journey for SGM.
“A lot of what is happening is familiar to me from my time at Martin, when it expanded from entertainment to architectural lighting. I’m very excited to be in a similar situation again where we’re building up the architectural side. I love what I’m discovering in the company.
“I’m discovering some amazing technologies that I don’t think are being used enough yet, because they can create some amazing products in terms of the finesse of control, the light quality, and colour calibration.
“There is some very clever technology in this company that has not properly seen the light of day, so I see huge potential. The people here have a lot of experience, and if we can choreograph the dance in the right way between Denmark and China towards a global market, I think we could have an amazing winning formula.”
When a company reaches a landmark anniversary, particularly one as significant as a 50th, there can be a tendency to look back on where you have come, and reflect with nostalgia on past glories. For SGM though, it became very clear during our visit to Aarhus that the focus is very much on the future. From some very exciting, potentially game-changing new product developments that, for now, remain highly confidential, to expansion plans at their head offices in Denmark, as well as around the world, all with the full collaboration and support of Golden Sea.
Reflecting on this, Ferrante says: “There is a lot of vision, and a lot of forward thinking and long-termism. Not just for tomorrow, but a lot longer down the road.”
And so, with all of this in mind, it will be exciting to see what the next 50 years will bring.
