Dont know if this is old news or not but heard today that Wiggle has been sold (after being up for sale for £200 million) for £250 million. Anyone out there confirm this?
Bike Forum
Wiggle sold??
-
Posted 6 months ago #
-
Wasn't me
Posted 6 months ago # -
Hope they used their £100 off Chrimbo voucher......
Posted 6 months ago # -
Bit over estimated there, but here is the truth,
Mitch Dall, who together with fellow entrepreneur Harvey Jones founded Wiggle with just £2,000, has sold his 26pc stake in the company.
ISIS Equity Partners, the private equity group, and Wiggle's existing management team have bought out Mr Dall's shares in the retailer.
Mr Jones, Wiggle's managing director, will retain his interest in the company but has opted to step back from day-to-day duties. The company is searching for a new chief executive.
The sale brings to an end a three-year partnership between ISIS and Mr Dall after the buyout group led a £12.3m refinancing of the retailer in July 2006 in exchange for a 42pc stake in the business.
Related Links
You might like:Housing market 'unlikely to recover', says Bank of England expert22 Nov 2011(Telegraph Finance)FTSE live: market report - as it happened November 21, 201121 Nov 2011(Telegraph Finance)City Desk Morning Briefing - Friday November 25, 201125 Nov 2011(Telegraph Finance)From the WebFORM THE WEB:The Digital Talent Gap01 Nov 2011(FINS.com)What Will Happen if your Country Goes Bankrupt?01 Nov 2011(BBC Business Video)Prophetic Economist Warns, ‘It’s Curtains for the US.’ Prepare.17 Aug 2011(Moneynews)[what's this]
Wiggle, which sells clothing and accessories for outdoor pursuits, has grown rapidly since the buyout, taking advantage of the growth of the online retail market and the British public's burgeoning interest in cycling."The growth at Wiggle has been phenomenal," said Mr Dall, "but I enjoyed the embryonic stage."
Mr Dall used the first ISIS investment to launch mobiwasher.co.uk, an online retailer that specialises in selling mobile pressure washers for bicycles and other outdoor accessories.
ISIS also owns Fisher Outdoor Leisure, one of the UK's leading distributors of bicycle parts to the retail trade.
Posted 6 months ago # -
With that type of debt to service, I can't see wiggle being competitive in the market place any more.
They've spent a good while concentrating on price shagging to grow turnover at the expense of actual profit, with view to an easy sale based on growth... operating profit dropped from about 13% to 11.5% in last figures.
covering that sort of investment, with the investor expecting a reasonable return, there's no way they can continue with the USP of low margin, and will wither on the vine.
Posted 6 months ago # -
It works for Amazon, though.
Posted 6 months ago # -
covering that sort of investment, with the investor expecting a reasonable return, there's no way they can continue with the USP of low margin, and will wither on the vine
I think they are looking at the vertical integration with Fishers as part of the commercial setup
Posted 6 months ago # -
I bought it with my Platinum discount and the extra £10 off email.
Posted 6 months ago # -
A partial mbo is interesting enough. But Isis will beon a 3 or 5 year exit strategy. Interesting to see what the ipo or trade sale value will be then.
Posted 6 months ago # -
problem with a vertical integration with fishers, is that again it makes the retail price shagging difficult, if Wiggle sell anything from the fisher catalogue cheaply, then Fisher will lose the LBS market, which as much as we don't want to accept it ourselves is far, far bigger than the internet market - and to an extent, the internet market itself relies on leaching off the back of a physical presence in shops (look at it in store, buy online)
look at the brands that are under the Chain Reaction family wing - you don't see them shagging them out.
The other problem vertical integration creates is foreign sales - if in this example, the brand importer for SRAM from one country (Fisher) sells through their retail arm (Wiggle) into another region (Australia) then there is going to be hell to pay behind the scenes with the australian SRAM importer going ape over the UK importer shagging his market.
complex and messy this is going to be!
Posted 6 months ago # -
Good to hear that these ISIS guys have picked themselves up after their flawed bottom bracket design of a few years ago.
Posted 6 months ago # -
Wiggle used to be a good alternative to CRC.. then I percieved less bargains and an upping of prices such that they never seemed better value for pretty much everything... and I have rarely visited since.. that was about 8 years ago?
Posted 6 months ago #
Reply
You must log in to post.
