Wiggle Chain Reaction Deal Falls Through: Mike Ashley Buys Name and IP

Would love to know how much I’ve spent with them over the years, at one point I had gold membership as I was buying something at least every other week!

Would be interesting as I was on Platinum a lot of the time.  No record of past purchases pre website change though is there and probably better I didn’t know anyway!

I’m getting back into riding after quite a few years off. The e-bike deals are really tempting, but assume there is basically no warranty now on vitus/nukeproof frames? Might have more luck on component warranties such as Shimano (thinking of the steps motor).

Anyone got and info regarding this?

@convert – our Evri deliveries are just as good/regular as Amazon, PO etc. Tracking is accurate and everything arrives on time.

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group has acquired Wiggle Chain Reaction Cycles’ brand and intellectual property 

Debt doesn’t come into it. He’s just bought the name and IP – presumably to slap on his existing online cycling offer.

He’s not bought the business as a going concern. It’s not like a pre-pack deal where the business gets phoenix-ed and trading continues via a very similar entity.

The interesting thing to me is that £10m is potentially a bit of a bargain if it gives Fraser group a better internet cycling storefront that Evans plus a few more brand names slap on their tat…

As also reported in February, the deal will result in all 447 of WiggleCRC’s employees losing their jobs, with a number taking to social media last week to confirm that their “time was up” at the company as the administrators “closed the shutters”….

…The deal also follows the trend for Frasers to purchase the brand and intellectual property of retailers on the brink of collapse at a heavy discount, while laying off all or almost all of the company’s staff in the process.

^^These statements from the road.cc article^^ feel like the reporting is intended to direct some extra anger/blame at Ashley, instead of Signa who were basically the ones that **** the Chiggle employees. He’s just buying some of the remaining assets (same as the rest of us picking up heavily discounted kit/parts/bikes). Ashley is no ‘business angel’ and his growing involvement in the cycling retail world isn’t necessarily something to welcome, but it does seem like some of the reporting is a bit disingenuous (IMO).

is intended to direct some extra anger/blame at Ashley, instead of Signa who were basically the ones that **** the Chiggle employees. He’s just buying some of the remaining assets (same as the rest of us picking up heavily discounted kit/parts/bikes).

A very good point. You’ve made me reconsider how I see this anyway.

Wonder if that £10m includes the design specs and supplier data for all the inhouse brand Nukeproof / Vitus / Prime frames and parts and Lifeline / DHB /Fohn clothing?

Also curious about this.

They could get a few more years out of those designs (longer for clothing) without having to employ a design team.

What have they done with Evans’ in-house stuff? Might give a clue.

Wonder if that £10m includes the design specs and supplier data for all the inhouse brand Nukeproof / Vitus / Prime frames and parts and Lifeline / DHB /Fohn clothing?

If it does, it’s a bit of a bargain, but I suspect there’s a limit to what sort of manufacturing Fraser group will actually want to undertake in a rather Recessive cycling market.

If they own the rights to designs rather than just logos I’d expect them to maybe pick up the ‘soft goods’ side of things.

Im surprised they got £10m to be honest, seems a lot for what looks like mostly IP and very little stock/assets.

Surely the stock comes with Debts attached, and is now significantly devalued by the recent fire sales.

I wouldn’t undervalue IP (although it’s still unclear what ‘IP’ actually covers in this instance) the Wiggle and CRC web addresses alone should generate plenty of sales traffic (thus they are assets in their own right), not everyone will be as aware as us bike nerds about these industry shenanigans and will follow the top hits from google or bang in the same URL they always have to buy some bike stuff…

Some of the brands have some solid value, I still see plenty of DHB kit out and about when riding, it ain’t Castelli or Rapha but DHB is pretty widely purchased and used, carrying over their VFM proposition could well suit Fraser group.

NP/Ragley/Vitus Dunno, Is Vitus really worth much more than Pinnacle? Will Fraser group want to pick up manufacture of more ‘premium’ pitched brands like NP or Ragley? or start knocking out Carbon wheels under the prime brand again?
Given they’re already picking over the bones of a recessive online cycling retail market Probably not in the first year or two.
If they make 3x their £10m back on the deal within ~24 months (they probably will), they might consider trying their hand at more adventurous stuff but it’s all a Risk Vs Reward calculation.

The other thing they might consider is parting out some of that IP to sell on, This certainly isn’t the first incarnation of NukeProof, and I’m sure someone thinks they’d be able to revive Ragley as a brand post Chiggle…

£10m is a pretty good price IMO.

Will Fraser group want to pick up manufacture of more ‘premium’ pitched brands like NP or Ragley?

See I was thinking the opposite. Presumably if they want Nukeproof bikes all they have do is email the manufacturer with numbers in each size….

£10m seems a lot to me. They paid £8m for all of Evans in a more bouyant (or at least more certain) market.

Edit: Just read the article though. It says ‘worth less than £10 million,’ which is not £10m. So what is it?

See I was thinking the opposite. Presumably if they want Nukeproof bikes all they have do is email the manufacturer with numbers in each size….

Old Nukeproof should own the moulds, with exclusive use of the frame designs. If (as above) the frame manufacturer is owed money then I’m sure there will be some interesting and frank discussions about getting access to them (which at best means Ashley having to buy the moulds from the Administrator).

It looks like a great big mess.

The very cheap Brand X dropper post I ordered on Thursday arrived this morning. All good, but no sweeties in the box. Things really must be bad.

I think the “under” in under £10m must be doing some heavy lifting – the IP is worth a very small percentage of that without the team and infrastucture around it.

Who is left to build jumps and switchbacks, I wonder…

Edit:  Looking at the wording, I can’t help but think there was no one left to even write the text for the holding page and so someone just asked ChatGPT to come up with something.

Just reading through the list of creditors. There is no way the demise of Wiggle is not going to have a domino effect for the bike industry. So many of these companies won’t be able to sustain the scale of loss. 🙁

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02667809/filing-history/MzQwOTUxMDEzMmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0

Some of the numbers blow my little mind.

Endura owed quite a bit. That will sting!  Can companies take out insurance against this sort of thing?

Some riders/film makers on that list aswell. Sam Hill is owed £35k!

EDIT – Should have refreshed before I posted!

I can sort of see how the bike industry supply chain has ended up like this, where Chiggle are the bigger entity in the deal but there are some odd ones in there. Oracle are owed £445k, how have they not pulled the plug on whatever their contract was for before it got that bad!

What were their credit control and risk teams doing?

Depends entirely on whether or not WCRC’s credit with those suppliers was insured.

There are some very big numbers on that list which will be insured and therefore survivable, and some smaller numbers that were not and could end up sinking the business they were owed to.

The numbers themselves are not the whole story.

“Endura owed quite a bit”

We were talking about this last week. Endura (and others) must be fuming, they havent been paid, and then,to rub it in even more, their stock is being sold at cost price, so nowhere else in the Country is having any Endura sales, as CRC are so cheap, hence they are not selling any other stuff to anyone else. There is a need for a Contract where it stays your property until the Bill is paid in full. Such Contracts are common in the building industry, if the buyer goes bust, you go to the site to collect your goods back.