Story from Bicycle Retailer -
Dutch conglomerate adds a major mountain bike brand to its portfolio. Pon Holdings, a Dutch conglomerate that owns several bike brands including Cervélo, Focus and Gazelle, has purchased California-based Santa Cruz Bicycles.
A Pon statement said that the company will remain based in Santa Cruz, California, and that co-founder Rob Roskopp will stay on as CEO.
Co-founder Rob Roskopp
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The current management team will also remain in place and continue to be the driving force behind further success at Santa Cruz Bicycles," Pon said.
Roskopp founded Santa Cruz in 1993 with Rich Novak.
Santa Cruz Bicycles will become part of the Pon Bicycle Group, which is now composed of: Santa Cruz, Juliana, Cervélo, Focus, Gazelle, Union, Kalkhoff, Univega, Rixe and BBB Cycling. The group has production facilities all over the world, including in the Netherlands, Germany and the United States, and is active in over 80 countries. The group expects to sell about 800,000 bicycles this year, generating revenue of roughly 600 million euros.
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No information on the terms of the sale are currently available.Story from
Bicycle Retailer and Industry news.
Rat Boy along with Team mechanic will continue forward with business as usual.
Have you not noticed how Santa Cruz has already changed?
Huge difference between a company run with passion by the founder and a company run by an investment group to make money.
Of course Roskopp will stay as CEO. That is the standard procedure. But the CEO does what the owner ask.
You may be the un-educated one.
@Sworks73 PON don't really have any components to put onto Santa Cruz. They own BBB but that's more along the lines of tools and spares. Regardless, they're clever enough not to go against the desirability of SRAM/Shimano/Rockshox/Fox on high end builds. They've bought SC as a premium brand, to stay a premium brand.
nsmb.com/santa-cruz-bikes-sold
Cervelo does not have a pro team anymore. If people don't understand what that means, then you won't be able to tell the difference between sc now and in 3 years. And btw, I haven't seen anyone riding a new cervelo in quite a while.
We shall see whether the strong investment in the Syndicate continues. Let's hope so. It is a key part of the brand.
Interestingly, a long time ago, maybe 20 years ago, Specialized made a few big product/marketing mistakes, including trying to sell massive numbers of low-end bikes through Costco and unintentionally cannibalizing their strong LBS network. As a result, Specialized almost failed as a company and limped through the late 90s. Their solution was to take on a 49% capital investor (Merida, a Taiwanese frame manufacturer) to give the company a better cushion in case it steps on a landmine again, and the company had a religious conversion about protecting their LBS network and brand aggressively. SC went a different route with a complete sale to what seems likely to be a good owner of the brand, and did so at a time of great strength (as far as we know).
Since Roskoff and team are staying on, one assumes the deal includes an earn-out, meaning that a substantial part of the payment for the company is contingent on future sales, revenues, or profit metrics. That is the best way to keep a former owner/CEO focused on the company.
Pro-Conti yes and they'll be at Le Tour tomorrow, but true they don't have the massive exposure they once had.
SC have been changing direction from their roots for years and the prices have gotten ridiculous as they seem to be trying so hard to be an "aspirational" brand. All it means is every mincer and his dog with too much money has a SC.... much like Cervelo. Good fit actually!
What happened to Klein, Bontrager and Fisher is irrelevant - absorbing a bike company into another manufacturer is different to selling to an umbrella company. Reference, look at GT since Dorel/Cannondale took over. It's brought them out of the Walmart shitheap and back into relevance.
Finally, if you don't see people riding Cervelo then you just ain't looking. Almost every production run of their current bikes is selling out.
PS Pinkbike I think it would be very cool of you to have a "Win your own bike company contest".
In my decade of work within my industry and my experience through life, companies get bought by larger ones WILL get watered down, the management team may stay intact but they WILL NOT have the full pull they did before. They can talk all they want about having more dollars to invest, all these high end manufacturing plants yada yada yada, that is ALL lip service, the buying company is interested in ROI, they are going to cut jobs and cut quality so they can squeeze as many fractions of a penny out of every inch of the company they can.
I am sure there are a few companies who made the company better but for every one of those I bet I can show you 100 who went the opposite direction.
Business men don't buy businesses for the passion of the business, they buy businesses for their love of money.
So far PON have acted like a company that's in it for the long haul, not for a quick buck - and if Cervelo is any indication you might just find that the next V10 or Nomad is just as good in design and spec but a few $k cheaper.
I'm in the same boat as any other SC fan--I hope the sale means even better things for Santa Cruz, or at least they remain the same. I'd love to see Yeti up their production and bring the prices down a teeny bit to better compete. A few years ago I saw Yeti and SC a lot closer...now, SC is dominating in so many ways (actually being able to make at least a little margin on a sale helps so much! Hint hint Yeti )
4 years ago all my bikes where yetis (a 303rdh, dj and sb) and i loved them .... and thought i will always ride yeti's .... but the waiting time for a replacement for my actual 303 keept me also looking somewhere else on other bikes .... the sb66 gut replaced with a Transistion enduro because of the reports from cracked sb6c and worn out switch links...) and the stupid price tag in europe....
i dont do dj any more (i never really did ) but there also would not be a dj bike in the yeti range for let me roll to geht me lunch
and sadly yesterday i sold my 303 frame because a 27,5 wilson is on the way to me... because i am sick of waiting for a new 303....
end of an relationship really ....and i dont change my bike every 2 years ..i change them when the rebuild kit is more worth then the actual frame...
That all said, the first bike I owned and LOVED was a used Santa Cruz Nomad. That bike is f*cking awesome and I'd own one now if they weren't a minimum of $5K +. I was down in SC in 2014 and toured their new shop. They give their employees decent benefits which is not always the case in the US of A and I really respected that. And everyone genuinely seemed to love to work there and they were super accommodating with giving us a tour on a rainy day we couldn't ride. As long as they keep their attention to detail on the bikes people are buying you won't see much change I reckon.
Funny comment though
old owner retires (in afew years)
Old company just turns into a brand to streamline.
Rob how do you sleep at night
Answer
On a bed of money with many beautiful ladies
I am bummed Roskopp decided to sell SC, but it's his (former) company and prerogative. While Spesh, Trek, and Giant are massive companies, they still seem pretty damn passionate about bikes even if they do offer low end rides. Diamondback went the way of Walmart for a while but are putting out some seriously nice high end bikes lately. GT lost its edge, but the Athertons have done a spectacular job of reintroducing them to hardcore MTBers.
Let's lay off the hyperbole for a bit on how SC will go downhill from this acquisition.
Oh wait, I see that that's already happened.
The Bicycle Industry: Where its customers expect a kumbaya circle jerk not-for-profit industry to be run by volunteers who aren't looking to make a buck, and enrich their souls by giving away product.
The big concern is that PON will shutter the California factory. PON did this with Cervelo's Canadian factory just three months after taking over.
www.bicycleretailer.com/north-america/2012/05/31/cerv%C3%A9lo-ramps-down-toronto-assembly#.VZfcypSFTAU
Every factory has them, every now and then some end up in public...
I don't see the relevance to me hoping the brand, bikes, marketing, graphic department, philosophy, syndicate team, quality control, tolerances, ... are staying the same.
Off topic continued... I'm a big fan of YT and how they achieved to be where they are...
But when you get the chance to own a Santa Cruz. You're not worried over a photo of a broken bike....
SC was at the forefront of every innovation over the years. Please keep the fire burning.
thanx Rob
www.pon.com/pon-ondernemingen/alfabetische-lijst.22.lynkx
I've only owned one SC(Butcher), but had a tremendous respect for how they started, and where they made it to.
Big corporations tend to be run by bean counters, and I'm worried that the first thing on their plate is gonna be cutting costs via cheaper parts(more of which will be made in good 'ole S.E. Asia), less R&D, and lower quality/reliability.
Keeping dude on as CEO will only go as far as what they give him permission to do-if he even has as much enthusiasm for the brand as he did when it reflected totally and completely on him.
Only time will tell...
Nearly everyone I know of on Niners have have frames break, and quite a few Treks. I know someone who broke multiple Transition frames. Shit happens. Are they bad bikes/companies?
I broke the Ti link on my Blur XC and they had new parts to me in no time, few questions asked.
Go ride your bike...
"Santa Cruz, Juliana, Cervélo, Focus, Gazelle, Union, Kalkhoff, Univega, Rixe and BBB Cycling"
Well one of those brands clearly stands out as faaaar better than ll the others.... Not sure I'm happy about this move.
No such place exists? We'll see about that!!
AFAIK patents run 20 years, which means that some of the patents have run their course?
"Virtual Pivot Point (VPP) Patent Numbers: 5,553,881; 5,628,524; 6,206,397; 6,488,301 Inventors: James B. Klassen, Jamie W. Calon/Outland Design Technologies, Inc./ Santa Cruz Bicycles Controlling Entity: Santa Cruz Bicycles Filing Dates: January 25, 1995; November 15, 1995; March 13, 1998; January 5, 2001 Issue Dates: September 10, 1996; May 13, 1997; March 27, 2001; December 3, 2002"
Yeti is the big winner here, IMO. Not many standing anymore. Say what you like but "business as usual" is company speak for PR damage control at announcement time.
:-(
Any idea of what it sold for?
Because here in Holland the big companies hardly have to pay any taxes.
(Before you want to move here; average joe and average company does pay full taxes.)
These things don't just happen, they will have spent a lot of time getting the right owner lined up and then sorting the deal. It's not a case of he who bids highest wins. They have to have synergies etc and you can't see Rob letting all his vision and creation go down the pan just like that. Nor would he agree to stay on if that was the case.
I love Santa Cruz so, yeah, a tinge of sadness but at the same time maybe it will bring more and better versions of the already incredible line-up and good luck to Rob!