UPDATE: Reviews section refreshed, redesigned, searchable: Go take a look
Accell Group, the Dutch owner of Haibike, Ghost, Lapierre and Raleigh, has entered insolvency proceedings. Its UK arm has filed to appoint administrators.
Explains the lack of a "Girls on Ghost" factory XC team...
Accell owns some of the most well-known names in Dutch cycling – Batavus and Sparta city bikes, Koga touring bikes, and the Babboe and Carqon cargo brands – as well as Raleigh, Lapierre, and the German marques Haibike, Winora, and Ghost. It employs around 3,700 people in 15 countries.
Four difficult years
The company was publicly listed in Amsterdam until private equity group bought it for €1.56 billion in 2022.
It has struggled ever since the covid pandemic. Demand for bikes surged during the pandemic but parts were hard to get, and by the time supply chains recovered Accell was left with a mountain of unsold stock. Revenues fell 22% in 2024 to just over €1 billion.
They were hit hard by the Babboe cargo bike recall too where it turned out that Babboe had been fraudulently managing their quality control and literally tens of thousands of cargo bikes (Babboe and sub-brands like Raleigh) needed recall and inspection. Cost them an absolute fortune although it also serves them right. It was the bike industry equivalent of the emissions scandal in the car world although outside of cargo bike circles, not a lot was ever said about it.
Raleigh, I have mixed feelings about. The fact that they were once one of the biggest names in bike manufacturing doesn't necessarily buy them a get-out-of-jail-free card. Just shows that as with countless companies over the years they've failed to adapt and evolve and move with the times.
Feels slightly dirty to say this, but it’s Haibike I feel worst for. Yes 99% of the bikes were gopping but they stuck to their guns and have been a big part of getting e-bikes established (for better or worse). The rest of the brands I doubt I’ll notice vanishing
Sad times.
There are a few brands in the performance/leisure market there that are just a other brand. But in Raleigh and Batavus you've got two brands that if you cycled to work in the 60s 70s and 80s in the UK or the Netherlands you were probably riding one or lent yours again one in the shed.
Having said that does this Raleigh have anything to do with the Nottingham based Raleigh other than the name?
Is it actually bad sales or is it a case of borrowing a huge amount of money to buy companies and then not being able to service the debt?
Seems to be common whenever you mention private equity going under.
You mean like what happens just about any time private equity gets involved in buying some company that actually makes things? *cough* EA and the Saudi PIF...
Is it actually bad sales or is it a case of borrowing a huge amount of money to buy companies and then not being able to service the debt?
Seems to be common whenever you mention private equity going under.
Per the story
The short version: private equity bought the top of the market.
In 2022, a consortium led by KKR took Accell private in a deal valuing it at €1.56 billion, on the assumption that pandemic-era demand for bikes and e-bikes represented a new baseline rather than a spike. It didn’t.
That just seems spectacularly bad business/failure of due diligence and business sense.
it was announced in January 2022. It should already have been obvious by then that there was trouble ahead. By August that year there was massive overstock in parts of the industry - I was buying clothing at huge discounts because (as I understand it) companies were receiving both the previous year's stock (that had been held up in global shipping chaos) and the current year. There was a fire sale of Sportful, Pearl Izumi and others. The same was happening with bikes - stuff went from no discounts to big discounts very quickly as supply chains opened up again.
It seems kind of obvious that demand driven in no small part by a shitload of free time during lockdowns wouldn't continue as the world returned to normal and that an awful lot of people who wanted bikes had just bought them. The final lockdown in the UK was in July 2021.
Having said that does this Raleigh have anything to do with the Nottingham based Raleigh other than the name?
It's literally just a brand name now isn't it, I'm sure someone will buy the rights once the bones of Accell are left out to be picked over.
Can't say I'm at all upset about Haibike TBH but I'm not an E-MTB Fanboi.
I think what is probably sadder is the impact to the wider Cargo bike market of (potentially) losing Batavus and Babboe. Both should be worth someone picking up, Right?
Also Koga as a touring bike brand; didn't Mark Beaumont use Kogas for both of his round the World rides?
Feels slightly dirty to say this, but it’s Haibike I feel worst for. Yes 99% of the bikes were gopping but they stuck to their guns and have been a big part of getting e-bikes established (for better or worse). The rest of the brands I doubt I’ll notice vanishing
Yeah, agree with this. It's not that I'm into ebikes, it's just that it sucks when pioneers do all the hard yards and then it goes mainstream and they get left behind. Happens pretty much every single time, mind you.
A friend/ acquaintance works for Haibike doing their graphics. She's been there since finishing uni back in 2011..... It's about time she changed jobs. Guess this might be the push she needed.
Babboe dropped a proverbial when their frames started falling and they didn't want to warranty most of them. They deserve to go under just for that.
That just seems spectacularly bad business/failure of due diligence and business sense.
A lot of the other failures in the post-Covid era were due to shops running around begging any and all suppliers for stock and when 4 shops are phoning the same supplier going "have you got Bike X?", the supplier thought (wrongly) that it was 4 people asking for the bike, but it was actually one person asking 4 times.
So the demand was believed to be 4x higher than it actually was and by the time the supplies started coming through again, everyone who wanted a bike already had one hence loads of excess stock.
And in that tiny window where demand was perceived to be through the roof ad everyone thought "this is the new normal", KKR bought Accell at the top of the market; Accell included brands that were already failing, notably Raleigh, along with brands that were not mainstream, like Lapierre and Ghost. Then they threw money at it to keep it afloat and now it's become one of the biggest private equity losses in the entire industry.
Raleigh's fall from grace has been painful to see but they're an irrelevance now.
"Is it actually bad sales or is it a case of borrowing a huge amount of money to buy companies and then not being able to service the debt?"
It does seem to be a pattern that keeps repeating. Leveraged buyouts when times are good, then wrapping the company up when it falls on hard times. Someone must be making a lot of money here.
A lot of the other failures in the post-Covid era were due to shops running around begging any and all suppliers for stock and when 4 shops are phoning the same supplier going "have you got Bike X?", the supplier thought (wrongly) that it was 4 people asking for the bike, but it was actually one person asking 4 times.
Again, this does seem like a failure to understand the customer. That's natural behaviour that should be obvious to anyone familiar with the bike (or any other) industry. Have you got one of these? not in stock, but we'll check with the supplier.
Raleigh has been all but dead for years, Haibike and Ghost never seemed to gain popularity outside mainland Europe but the Lapierre Spicy was THE UK trail bike back in the day, it's quite a rags to riches to rags again story.
which ones were they? Genuine curiosity, they're quite popular in these parts and I don't know anyone who's broke one. Our club's notorious bike snapper bought a carbon X-Control, one of the few frames he hasn't had replaced under guarantee.
My immediate thought was there goes my Van Nicholas Ti lifetime warranty which I've actually used 4 times for cracks appearing on 3 different models. However it appears that ship sailed in January when they sold Van Nic to an Italian company, hey ho. Hope the current gravel frame is better than earlier MTBs.
Damn. I just recently bought a Lapierre Overvolt AM ebike. Absolutely fantastic bike to ride, thankfully. And I assume the Bosch motor will get support. But it’s still naff that the manufacturer of a high ticket item you’ve bought goes under. And worse for the employees obviously. Just crap all round.
which ones were they?
No eyed deer.
Mate had one. I can picture it, but couldn't tell you the model.
Wasn't long after Crack'n'fail Cannondale.
It does seem to be a pattern that keeps repeating. Leveraged buyouts when times are good, then wrapping the company up when it falls on hard times. Someone must be making a lot of money here.
The PE model is buy it, build value, sell it for way more. The real value is in the last bit, the exit event not the debt servicing.
The whole idea that insolvency somehow makes the investors rich is one of those odd internet myths/misunderstandings. I think broadly it's because people distrust PE so they assume when an investment fails it's a way of legging over the little guy to make more money.
The most everyday analogy I can think of is it would be like buying an investment property to sell on in a few years time. You spend time and money renovating and extending it then renting it out to pay the mortgage and when you can't afford to fix the roof for the 10th time because it keeps leaking endlessly, you burn it down without paying the gas bill, except there's no insurance and you're left with a smoking heap of rubble.
Just had a look on the Raleigh website out of nosiness - limited range of kids bikes, some e-bikes, that’s it. No non-electrified adult bikes, no sign of the race team bikes of a few years ago. Unfortunately it feels like, like Peugeot, the name is all that’s really left and I’m saying that as one whose first bike was a Raleigh and who runs an elderly Pioneer.
The PE model is buy it, build value, sell it for way more. The real value is in the last bit, the exit event not the debt servicing.
What about the bit where they load the company up with debt and asset strip?
IMO its a bit like gambling with other peoples money. If a PE firm buys 20 firms with leveraged buyouts it can afford for 2 or 3 to go bust because there's a multiplier effect of the money they invest in the others. Problem is it destroys viable businesses.
Just had a look on the Raleigh website out of nosiness - limited range of kids bikes, some e-bikes, that’s it. No non-electrified adult bikes, no sign of the race team bikes of a few years ago. Unfortunately it feels like, like Peugeot, the name is all that’s really left and I’m saying that as one whose first bike was a Raleigh and who runs an elderly Pioneer.
Always the case.
Lapierre too - made some genuinely decent trail/enduro bikes in the spicy and zesty but that was 10+ years ago now.
Last year we had people gushing about Kona based on a 2005 Stinky or a 90's hardtail.
Innovate or die might be too harsh, but stay relevent or die should kind of be a bare minimum business model.
With Raleigh going down the tubes I wondered what happened to the brands it used to won, eg Humber, Rudge, Triumph etc
Innovate or die might be too harsh, but stay relevent or die should kind of be a bare minimum business model.
Not hard to argue that its worked though - Raleigh, Kona, and those guys were all around 30 years ago or more.
Only one of them is still one of the biggest brands around...
but the Lapierre Spicy was THE UK trail bike back in the day
Zesty surely? Spicy was 160 mm travel, Zesty 140 mm
We sold loads of Zestys BIT26"D. I don't recall any frame failures.
Not exactly a snapped frame, but my 2009 Zesty came from the shop with a crack in the bottom bracket shell. I think there were a few. (Probably wrong story) was that the reamer in the factory was blunt and when the pushfit bottom bracket was pushed in the shells were cracking.
Mine came from the Bike Chain in Edinburgh, I remember one of the guys I dealt with (Colin?) being an STW forumite, but don't think it was you!
PE buy something and have a roughly 5 year lifecycle before they have milked it dry, pumped it full of debt and sucked out every last bit they can. It’s all about the shareholders. If you’re lucky you can sell it to them high and then buy back for pennies on the pound like Kona did.
Shit, no more Zesty, X-Control, Crosshill... Lapierre rarely if ever made a bad bike.
My mate had a new'ish Zesty/Spicy (can't remember what). Looked good and had an amazing spec but he never got on with it - for a modern enduro bike the geo was very pre-2020 I believe.
Feel for the folk who have lost their jobs this week.
Personally hope that lapierre sort themselves out and continue, and that they honour warranties, or at the least tell us where their inventory of spares move to. I suspect that may be a bit much to ask though.
There's an article on the BBC News website about Raleigh subsequent to this, if anyone's interested.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2kgwrv6gvo
