UPDATE: Nukeproof, Vitus, Chain Reaction Cycles & Wiggle Face Uncertainty as Parent Company in Financial Trouble
Signa Sports United is facing financial difficulties as the past month saw it announce restructuring, delisting from the New York Stock Exchange and the termination of a 150 million euro equity commitment from an affiliate of its largest shareholder.
The e-commerce company Signa Sports United (SSU) owns a large collection of online sites and partners across outdoor sports, tennis and team sports markets. SSU also has ownership of the bike brands Nukeproof and Vitus as its list of owned retailers includes Chain Reaction Cycles and Wiggle.
The latest report from Cycling Electric suggests that Chain Reaction Cycles and Wiggle could be looking to enter into self-administration, a situation where the current leadership could restructure the business without the need to call in external administrators. Currently, this move has not been officially announced by the company but we will provide an update as soon as we have it.
Looking back to earlier this month SSU announced to investors it would be accelerating "its strategic realignment and performance enhancement program in light of continuing macroeconomic headwinds, oversupply in the market and the Company’s severe liquidity and profitability challenges." In its investor press release, SSU notes that a "continuation of material disruptions" started in the second half of last year and affected the first nine months of the company's 2023 financial year.
While the press release notes that the company has seen some market improvements in this time the demand for product remains "significantly below 2022 and pre-pandemic levels." Inventory levels were also noted as being high, with SSU stating the problem in clearing inventory is "resulting in a material adverse effect on the Company’s gross margins and increasing negative cash flows."
As part of the planned strategic realignment, SSU said its board of directors and management have concluded upcoming measures will include "the streamlining and rightsizing of under-performing business units, the termination or winding down of non-performing assets as well as the opportunistic evaluation of disposals of non-core assets to strengthen the company‘s distressed liquidity position and financial profile."
It was not made clear what parts of the business will be affected by these measures although SSU does explicitly mention its bike segment where it advised the segment's operating performance "continued to lag management expectations." It was mentioned this is a result of the industry-wide problem of lower demand and the increased "promotional activity to rightsize inventory levels."
Also in this announcement was the decision to delist from the New York Stock Exchange as "Company’s Board of Directors has concluded that the benefits associated with being listed on the New York Stock Exchange do not justify the costs and demands of management’s time necessary to meet the Company’s US regulatory commitments." In a snapshot of the companies stock performance a clear downward trend can be seen since it began trading in December 2021.
A further blow to the company was delivered on October 16 when SSU published a statement detailing the termination of a €150 million equity commitment from SIGNA Holding GmbH, an affiliate of the largest shareholder SIGNA International Sports Holding GmbH.
The equity commitment from SIGNA Holding GmbH was claimed by SSU to be an "unconditional commitment" to provide a total of €150 million in "additional liquidity" from September 1, 2023, through to September 30, 2025. SSU claims of the €150 million, €143 million remains undrawn.
 | After many years of mutually trusted collaboration and reliable financing between the Company and SIGNA Holding, SSU has relied on the binding and unconditional nature of the Equity Commitment Letter to continue to draw funds to meet its near-term obligations and for its going concern assessment of the Company and its subsidiaries. The Company considers the termination of the Equity Commitment Letter by SIGNA Holding unjustified. While the Company regrets the termination of the Equity Commitment Letter, it will take the appropriate legal steps in the interests of all its shareholders, creditors and employees. |
The most recent news of the potential self-administration of Chain Reaction Cycles and Wiggle has been accompanied by riders such as DJ Brandt sharing on social media that they will no longer with riding for the associated brands of SSU as contracts have been cut short. DJ Brandt said: "I wanted to make a post explaining why I won’t be riding for Nukeproof anymore so there wasn’t any rumors. I was on a 2 year deal until the end of 2024 but it got cut short due to Nukeproof's parent company losing a massive investor. It’s not my fault, it’s no one I worked withs fault. Just the product of some bad business way above any of our heads."
Update:
SSU has announced to its investors that Tennis-Point GmbH, one of its major subsidiaries has filed for insolvency with its other legal entities expected to follow.
In a small update posted to SSU's investor news page the company has stated that after the termination of a €150 million equity commitment Tennis-Point GmbH, an e-commerce company spanning bike, outdoor and tennis markets, has filed for insolvency.
The latest company statement also reveals that other legal entities of SSU are at risk as the company says: "Other legal entities of the SIGNA Sports United group, including SIGNA Sports United N.V. as ultimate parent company of the SIGNA Sports United group, are currently in the course of preparing similar filings in line with applicable local legal requirements and will expectedly initiate the necessary filings in the coming days."
We have also spotted that the SSU North America’s bike division has been shut down with just a few days' notice. Hap Seliga the CEO of Bike, North America posted on LinkedIn with the following statement.
| Today an amazing group of people has been forced to swallow a bitter pill. Despite exceeding our top and bottom line FY23 goals handily, SIGNA Sports United North America’s bike division has been forced to cease all operations with less than a few days’ notice. This was triggered Monday by a sudden reneging of a binding 150 million Euro equity commitment to SIGNA Sports United N.V. To say this comes as a shock is an understatement. I haven’t even begun to be able to process this yet. Culturally and professionally, we created something entirely unique, built on a common passion to earn rider trust. We had the top talent in America in their respective disciplines, and an entirely novel approach to building a commercial enterprise in our vertical rooted in strong values. We made our culture a focus. We empowered and supported each other. We had each other’s backs, our rider’s backs and we moved with speed and conviction. Vitus and Nukeproof were merely steppingstones on the larger path we were building, and the immediate success of those two brands in this challenging environment speaks volumes about this team. And, to think it's all been done in just over a year! I could not be more humbled and honored to work alongside and learn from each of you every day. I am better for it. Thank you for being awesome. |
As part of our reporting we contacted the companies and brands involved in this story although at the time of publication we either received no response or we were not able to be supplied with a comment. We will update this article if we are given an update from any involved entities.
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Sick bikes, unreal teams, great tech support and the issue you claim has nothing to do with the issue in the article.
Frames crack and snap from all brands, it’s part of the sport deciding that people are too weak to bunnyhop so bikes have to suddenly weigh as little as possible even though it makes them ride like shit and snap.
I was defending Nukeproof mate
I've been searching the Facebook groups and there are tons of cracked frames on Megas and Gigas....so yeah, it seems like they crack, no crashes involved.
Signa the times I guess
Felt it here in Germany to
Classic lose lose situation
A lot of the things that made CRC good in particular was the way the staff went about their work; CRC always felt a bit like the online / mail order bit of a bike shop that it originally was. You could search for a 604 ERD rim with 28 spokes with the old CRC site and find a whole selection - you just can't do that any more.
Used to buy a lot and from a looong time cause items were available and with fair prices.
Thinking about it…I didn’t buy anything since Brexit.
German and French websites have become my choices!
These days, I do a yearly order from BikeInn for brake pads and consumables. Shipping is pricey and its 3+ weeks to make it across the pond (most of which is probably waiting on US customs). Still works out to about a 20% discount versus any US retailer and they BikeInn almost always have the exact tires I want in stock.
“We send the EU £350m a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead”
“Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU. Vote Leave, take back control”
“Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market”
“We can take back control over UK waters, set our own fishing policies, and support our fishermen”
“Britain will be forced to join an EU ARMY unless we leave, says Armed Forces Minister”
“The UK government will continue to give farmers and the environment as much support – or perhaps even more – as now”
“Believe me, we’ll have up to 40 [free trade agreements] ready for one second after midnight in March 2019”
Reading those quotes again makes me so angry that these people have not been punished for how much they’ve damaged the UK, both now and for years in the future.
The referendum result was very close - 52% leave vs 48% remain. Those lies alone probably swung it. Also, on average the old voted to leave whilst the young voted to remain. If the referendum was done now, the 7 years of new young voters would mostly vote remain and the 7 years of mostly older voters who’ve died would mostly be unable to vote leave, so the result would be different.
It’s been a total car crash.
But the very wealthy people behind the leave campaign have made a lot of money from it, which is why the newspapers etc that they owned kept pushing brexit as a good thing.
The only paperwork is an automatically filled out form at the time of shipping and that’s it, no issues at all, customer pays VAT upon import and a few euros handling fee all done digitally and item arrives within a week usually.
Can you pass me a link over to where things changed recently?
As I say, we send 5-10 items to the EU daily, have done since Brexit with absolutely zero changes in returned items or issues.
As with all things, it’s never as simple as either side will tell you: leaving the EU has been disastrous economically, but the whole EU institution is fundamentally unfit for purpose and needs urgent reform.
JP
Absolutely. The problem Remain had in the referendum campaign is that we were voting for a known vs an unknown. Remain could only sell what we had - Leave could sell whatever the hell they wanted. If you were considering voting leave but wanted to keep the free market, someone in the Leave campaign would say you can have that. If you didn't want the free market, someone in Leave would say you can have that. If you wanted free movement, you could have that, and if you didn't want free movement, you could have that too. It shouldn't have taken a genius to figure out that most Leave voters were inevitably going to get shafted but apparently it was too difficult for a lot of them to figure out that 20 conflicting policies into one reality doesn't go.
The problem has been compounded by the gradual hijacking of the leave process by the hardest of the hard line right wing leave and burn everything groups. A couple of months after the referendum the big promise was that we'd get Norway Plus, or Switzerland Plus or whatever. Free market membership with no regulatory or free movement compromises (obviously a fantasy, but whatever). Now, the hard right has twisted the narrative to such a degree that they can claim that any move whatsoever towards closer EU co-operation or even free market only membership would be a total betrayal of the referendum result and the vast majority of the media accepts that at face value. It's absurd.
And how do they get there? Are you also saying you're in favour of scrapping the Senedd and being governed from Westminster?
@dotman: Regurgitated Facebook propaganda does not an argument make. You've had your buttons pushed by catchy little quips that appeal to freedom fetishists (who inevitably think that a country can exist in isolation and rule the waves and we won the war, etc.) and there's no way back for many like you, because you only see what you want to. I'm not bitter, I'm sad that it's so easy to dupe people who have the right to vote and sway the future of a country that was once respected. "Cesspool" - have you smelt your local river/beach recently? EU regs wouldn't have allowed that.
Equally there is a constant barrage of abuse and blame laid against older generations because they voted for Brexit. What is conveniently overlooked is that 28% could not even be bothered to vote. As age dropped so did turnout yet as age dropped allegedly support for the EU increases.
People voted leave for a plethora of different reasons. The Remain campaign were also unbelievably arrogant in assuming a win was assured. When that started to look less certain, instead of pushing the benefits of remaining in the EU the just attacked leave.
Yes there has been a knock-on impact however based on my experience of shipping in both directions the overheads are not a arduous or costly as many would have us believe.
This man sums it up better than I ever could.
Right - and what freedom is that, exactly? The freedom to leave the EHCR as the leave agitators are now pushing for? It seems they confuse freedom for a government to do whatever it wants with freedom for the people living under that government - when in fact it is often the exact opposite.
He’s currently making a nob of himself over on the Singletrackworld forum too, he does own some very nice machines though.
Saying the Remain campaign just assumed they were going to win is nothing but an unsubstantiated opinion. What evidence can be cited to either support or disprove it?
As for attacking Leave - the Leave campaign told numerous outright lies. What opposing campaign that is actually trying to win would leave those unaddressed? The Leave campaign also sold numerous fantasies - utter fantasies as demonstrated by the post Brexit difficulties in getting any kind of trade deal at all - about what we would get or be able to do after we left. What kind of campaign that was actually trying to win would not address those things? If anything, it's the lack of genuine challenge or honest appraisal of Leave campaign statements from the established media that contributed to the situation we find ourselves in. Remember the Emily Maitliss statement on the illusion of balance? They had to ring 20 economists to find 1 that would come on and say Brexit would be good for the economy... yet when the show goes to air they present 1 voice on either side and pretend that's representative of the conversation.
www.google.com/amp/s/www.voanews.com/amp/which-us-states-get-more-than-they-give/4809228.html
And the BBC were as complicit in giving a voice to the bullshitters as anyone else, in the name of balance (read false equivalence). I can do this all day. It's been a while. Brexiters are having their pants pulled down lower and lower every day. Hubris is a great mask with which to cover embarassment.
Get a dictionary if you're (as in "you are") struggling in terms of comprehension.
Make you feel warm and fuzzy inside does it? Narcissistic with a superiority complex I'd imagine? Don't appreciate a loss do you?
As for him ‘losing’ - what have the ‘winners’ won?
The winners won the contest hence the winners won eh
And what did he win? The ability to say he won, that’s it, it’s like betting somebody you could shit yourself and then doing it to prove you can - what a prize.
I'm self employed in construction and I can't take on any more work for three years it's that busy out there. Nothings changed were doing just fine and yes I only think about myself, because nobody else does.
Also, how was the latest king elected?
It's ironic when British person complains about the lack of democracy outside of their own country. Pointing out how their opinion is their own is also funny as f*ck, when those opinions are exactly the same as bullshit that was debunked ages ago that stays alive only because stupid people keep posting them on the internet
Pick yer toys up kiddo
The fact is that indirectly elected is still elected. Only a moron would want to vote on everything themselves, especially in an organisation like an EU. That's MEPs are for.
And again with the insults?
How's the blood pressure I see you're a larger gentleman, careful with that anger.
Oh and Carlito, look at his profile he "body shames" himself......
I'm interested in exactly where in the upper Severn you live? Postcode, street and number would be great!
I'm speaking about actual people I actually know.
That's how I form my opinions.
Message me when you get here.
Don't believe everything you read.
The referendum was like asking your dog what type of washing machine you should buy. The answer would be the one made out of peanut butter.
Meanwhile, Brexit has cost the UK economy and population many many billions since 2016. Farage and his pals made a mint because of the pound crashing. The NHS has 100,000 vacancies, exacerby by an exodus of qualified EU citizens who feel unwanted. But it's all fine because a welshman saw some wildlife the other day and is making some coin. Ignorance is bliss. Funny how all the rEsEArcH these people do rarely leads to any kind of intellectual enlightenment. Almost like they're guided by confirmation bias, rather than a quest for stone cold information.
@dotman: you're the only one arguing in bad faith here. At least show some respect to people who are trying to explain things to you about the bigger picture, even if they succumb to the temptation to be rude in frustration at your disingenuous attitude and closed mindedness. You're not alone in having this mindset because it's a wider psychological phenomenon, like all conspiracy theory-led movements.
And immigration is also the rebound effect of colonialism. Our countries are wealthy because those resources have been plundered from the rest of the world over centuries. What you reap is what you sow. Can't have it both ways, as you say.
I know we're kind of agreeing, but I thought I'd answer a couple of points.
You have paid no heed to anything I have said, closed mind?
You have relied on statistics and reports written by others, possibly with their own agendas, possibly not. How can you tell?
I know not where you call home, so therefore couldn't possibly form any kind of opinion of what goes on there.
So I don't.
You may call me ignorant, uneducated, undoctrinated; I care not a jot.
I have me and mine, my own niche in life which pleases me.
What other people do, none of my business so I keep my nose out.
You can't possibly expect me to not believe what I can see but believe you instead?
Who brought up immigration, certainly not I?
They do seem quite keen to get the hell out of France mind....
Maybe our rain soaked basket case of an island isn't so bad after all?
@dotman I only bring immigration in the debate because from what I heard it was another strong argument for the people who voted for Brexit, so taking it out of the discussion to explain why Brexit happened seems strange to me.
Reports written by the OBR for e.g.? You know, the body responsible for guiding govt economic policy and hopefully preventing it from from f*cking things up horrendously as Truss and Kwarteng did last year?
Brexit was a Trojan horse that allowed an ultra elite to separate Britain from the herd and suck it dry. And a complex mess that has served nobody but a few high-level gamblers and those who the few who have benefited from wage inflation. The coffers of the nation and the OVERALL health and wellbeing of the population have got worse. I'm glad you're ok though, but that's irrelevant to the wider discussion.
obr.uk/box/how-are-our-brexit-forecasting-assumptions-performing
Just read the top three points. It's pretty clear. Or stick your fingers in your ears and sing lalala. Up to you.
@Balgaroth: fair points, but the points we both make can all be true at the same time. And "some people consider" is not particularly powerful either. You seem fixated on violence and rape by foreigners (define "foreigner". These are obviously right-wing media tropes designed to stick in people's minds. Regular sensationalism we see on the front pages of UK papers owned by billionaires who want to influence a nation but pay no tax in the country. I wonder who they would prefer to have in power?
Go outside now and again, take a deep breath and take it all in.....
The wheels are still attached, the sky's not fallen.
Rhier and narroz
Happens to us all.
No need to question academic prowess.
Choose where you live.
You sound a joy, so upbeat.
Bet you're a blast at parties
If you put others before you and yours then you're either a Saint or a liar.
I'm super f*cking fun at parties by the way. I'm not having that. Also, conflating ignorance and being fun is one of things that allows people to be manipulated.
I'll pop you an invite to the book launch,
Diaries of a selfish Welsh man!
See how strong your party game is then...
Sorry, I misread something. I thought you said 'hard to understand' when it was actually 'hard to accept'. My mistake.
Still, it was just a deflection from what was being said. When the criticism of a campaign is that it was full of outright lies, contradictions and fantastical promises that couldn't possibly be fulfilled, the comeback of 'yeah but it won' doesn't address any of those points. In fact it just goes to show how important it is to recognise and analyse the mendacity of the Leave campaign and its media supporters to know how better to counteract similar tactics in future.
Osborne, Obama, carney, Cameron.
All lied.
All the doom.
Didn't happen.
I made up my own mind.
One less level of bureaucracy for me.
I don't like being told how to think.
So stop it
Pity your dad didn't fancy the back door eh?
Err, ok now that is something you've just made up. The Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times all officially supported Brexit as their editorial position, along with the two most read newspapers in the country.
Seems like the Leave campaign was so good at telling you what to think they managed it without you even realising who they were.
What is wrong with you?
No cwtchs from mam?
Bullied I bet.
Not enough.
I'd of thrashed you like a hire car.
Twll dyn pob saes.
Let yourself live, come clean with the real you, it’s no wonder you were angry enough to vote with Nige.
I don't think I need to add anything else.
Why are you so desperate for me to listen to you?
Unloved?
Not surprised.
So off you scuttle.
Still cute.
You called me out on a mistake earlier and what happened? I immediately acknowledged it and apologised, because I'm a grown man without any major psychological difficulties. So just what the heck is going on with you?
I bet you're a feeble man.
Ten stone soaking wet.
Pick pick picking away on the Web.
Trying to force your opinions on folk.
Can't accept differences of opinion.
Bet you wouldn't speak stood in front of me.
Wet leftie jellyfish.
Essentially what I gain from this long exchange is that you are aren't being truthful with yourself about your sexual preference and also that you are a bit of a pervert and its why you are a bit of an angry breixity, gammony type.
Cute.
By the way - very telling that you’re only happy talking tough because you think I’m smaller than you. Great image of yourself you’re sending out there.
Small man.
In many ways
I'm more than happy in my life like I've pointed out repeatedly.
Your obviously another wet socialist.
Weak and feeble.
Vegan?
Definitely a nonce.
Careful with your hard drive.
Pervert.
Speaking of small, you’ve absolutely flipped your lid because I’ve pointed out that you were factually wrong about a single statement. C’mon man, why are you doing this to yourself?
Strange conclusion to come to.
Absolutely flipped my lid!
Oh the drama.
Exactly my point. Why would my frame size mean I’m a ten stone weakling? It was a very silly thing for you to say, wasn’t it
And yes, flipped your lid. When you’ve calmed down, or slept it off, or whatever is going on with you, come back and have a look at the exhibition you’ve made of yourself simply because I pointed out you were wrong about what some newspapers said about Brexit. If you’re lucky, you might come to some kind of realisation.
Still weak.
Pick pick picking away with these other dicks.
Safety in numbers for the feeble.
Twll dyn bob says.
He has also done a shit load of bad - you miss my comment where I said it would be dog shit horrendous if it happened?
He is a very smart businessman and his organisation is very efficient in "saving" companies that are in trouble. If you look at Evans you will find it is a completely separate entity with in his group. The debt and everything to do with it is nicely packaged up to ensure it can be off loaded with minimal impact on his wealth and empire.
Take Sports Direct and the returns policy - you can only get a credit note.
That all started to change once it was sold off and the Wiggle takeover (deffo wasn't a merger) happened. No amount of corporate branding can replace the people who were lost after that. Genuinely shocked at how they managed to take something so good and turn it into what has happened now.
The ramifications are far more widespread than just the UK Co's.
www.mtb-news.de/news/fahrrad-de-insolvenz
Then half the products I wanted to buy were geo blocked, Then they were acquired by wiggle and things went downhill from there.
Now the website sucks, Nothing is in stock, the pricing is not competitive and the shipping is outrageous. I haven't purchased anything from them in a long time.
Recently I tried to get some Fox float x spacers, none in country and sites wont ship to nz untill i found some in italy who dont care and sent them to me... Im not waiting untill january for NZ stock, what rubbish.
O.P.P.(arts box). I’ve got some of those
NZ importers do my head in, they only bring in what they want and nothing more..
like the hope people... bring in everything but the best brakes on the market(imo), absolutely mind boggling.
I also think NZ has the worst middleman situation... It feels like it goes through 3-4 mark ups before you get your product
A few examples of small UK companies seemingly ‘not good’ or gone:
Planet X - bought out after administration, how long will it run?
Stanton - wrote off £700k of investor money and now stays afloat by buying stock back from someone who keeps it in their garage.
Unite Components, recently moved out of their new premises back to the company that part owns them, socials are dead, no communication and staff look to be gone.
Pembree - £300k investment from guy farrant formerly of Whyte bikes the year previous (boom time) and now a further £30k this year put onto the company to seeming keep the doors open?
Wheels coming off, only the real big boys will benefit.
I don’t think they will disappear, but if they do the knock on effect will be huge, both short term for those that compete who will have to weather months of sales prices and long term for the industry that was supported by them.
I truly hope the NP and Vitus brands can be saved.
I stated they seemed to have stopped updating social media, have taken on hundreds of thousands of debt and moved out of their premises back to the old premises owned by an investor presumably to save money, and are running a seemingly permanent sale - things are obviously financially strained there.
Still see their vehicles about.
They don't appear to be either and I evidence that with what I said.
I am sure when your business is struggling you would appreciate someone highlighting concerns whether they are legitimate/in good faith or not.
unite operated here until moving to its own premises two years ago, it’s since moved back to the shared premises makefast occupy, presumably to aid cash flow - makefast own 20% of unite as it acted as guarantor for its loans.
By ‘not good’ I mean clear financial tightening, the accounts on companies house show this and the premises move, all available online, im making no claim that unite are going out of business or won’t provide product at all but public info is public info.
There's skate brands (your favorite culture to jock) who have been around for several decades and they barely scratch a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, yet they manage to stay in business and pay their teams a fair wage.
I don't feel sorry for millionaires that lose money. I feel bad for the people they screw on their way out.
Well....of course? Sometime I read something and it really makes me realize that the people who run the world (through finance, mostly) have nowhere near the expertise that you sort of assume they have.
Not that losing a big distributor like CRC won't hurt them, but hopefully not completely drag them down.
A few friends over in the US have told me they aren’t restocking at the moment and suppliers payments aren’t going out on time.
All about trying to turn a large online bike shop into a faceless shopping service to maximise profit for the holding company.
Of course both are now owned by ‘parent companies’ too…..
From the latest press release
Tennis-Point GmbH, one of the major subsidiaries of SIGNA Sports United N.V, has filed for insolvency
Other legal entities of the SIGNA Sports Group, including SIGNA Sports United N.V. as ultimate parent company of the SIGNA Sports United Group, are in the course of preparing the initiation of insolvency proceedings in the coming days
investor.signa-sportsunited.com/news/news/news-details/2023/Tennis-Point-GmbH-one-of-the-major-subsidiaries-of-SIGNA-Sports-United-N.V.-files-for-insolvency-with-further-insolvency-filings-for-other-legal-entities-of-the-SIGNA-Sports-United-Group-including-SIGNA-Sports-United-N.V.-to-follow/default.aspx
B: I have not shopped much at CRC since Shimano vetoed them from selling to Canadian customers.
C: I cannot understand how I could order a rim and a bunch of other parts made in Taiwan, shipped in a 30" square box from Ireland to BC in 3 days for under $100. Either parts are WAY cheaper than I thought, or shipping is way cheaper than I thought.
They also had odd shipping rates, $1100 to ship a bike to NZD... for reference, Canyon charge $250.
(not sure if Nukeproof, Vitus have them. I don't think Ragley does)
so sold the reactor frame , vowed never to buy nukeproof again , hotlines are awful to deal with
However, it will be interesting to see how this affects the major UK distributors which WiggleCRC (and other subsidiary's of Signa) may still be in debt to. If they file for bankruptcy it could be a massive problem for distros which are owed money.
This could have a knock on effect on LBS like myself. We will have to wait and see.
The Nukeproof product range has been sold off at cost for months now - pedals are £35 inc vat, they will be lucky to cover costs already, you want them to sell them for free?
Many manufacturers are going direct sales to
Bring the prices down where Specialized are buying bike shop after bike shop to be able to control the prices and keep them high.
It’s a greedy world we live in and the sport is definitely heading the wrong way when it come to quality and value for the money.
(They we’re around £20 a pedal years ago from this manufacturer for a basic pedal when I last saw the price list)
They aren’t just direct sales either, are they? They sell to shops too, if they go direct then the whole nukeproof model changes - vitus bikes are at a huge discount right now.
Price is the problem, just not know you see it being, the problem is their margins are too small not too large, they are a high margin low profit business completely different to the home garage bike shop world you were involved in short term - Derry Air cycles was it?
Pedals cost around £25-£35 from HT or similar and sell for £100 RRP, obviously add distribution etc in and the margin evaporates.
CRC don’t set retail pricing so thats irrelevant and if the do start nukeproof direct sale it would change the business model entirely.
Look into the accounts and business practices - CRCs margins are too low not too high, stop focussing on Nukeproof entirely.