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

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Bigger firesale coming then

That's terrible news. You have to feel for all the staff they let go.

Sad times, never the same since the merger. Wiggle/Signa ruined it all.

That's shit for everyone. Staff being made redundant, less choice for consumers and more chance of Mike Ashely making money.

Only positive I can see is that LBSs may be able to make some money on parts rather than everyone buying at Wiggle/CRC.

Oh also the smaller guys, SJS and Merlin Cycles spring to mind, get an opportunity to fill the gap

Shit news. Employees i feel most sorry for but had hoped they could keep the house brands going as i genuinely think they had some good ones... we'll see but sounds like it really is end of the line

Well that's another company that won't ever receive another penny of my money again then.... or anyone else's by the sound of it.

Genuinely sorry for the staff.

I wonder what point the money people spend there starts going into Ashley's pocket. I'd like to know, so I know when to stop buying the real cheap shit.

Merlin Cycles is now within a german group

German cycling giant purchases mail order specialist Merlin Cycles (cyclingindustry.news)

I guess the forum will be returning to hamster power

The absolute scumbag, buy the IP and bin the rest. Words fail me as to how this has been able to happen, complete and utter greed from all of them

Ah man. Down the same shitdrain as Evans. Luckily, during or the crappy-website-change-times etc, plenty of alternatives have been found online. My last 2 purchases have been from Woollyhatshop’s ebay listings and Merlin.

Terrible news for the employees. These sort of buy outs shouldn't be allowed to happen.

He is an Olympic level disaster capitalist

won’t ever receive another penny of my money again then…. or anyone else’s by the sound of it.

The whole Mike Ashley hate thing is weird, I have read articles written about him and how he is viewed as the bogeyman of retail. He’s a nasty piece of work, he’s too rich, won’t spend money with him….

But there’s also lots of people saying more needs to be done to save high streets up and down the UK.

He’s saved more high street shops than all* the people on this forum I suspect, we might not like his methods or practices but clearly the methods of the previous owners weren’t working.
Without his input I suspect the high street in most Towns would be worse.

I’m no ‘fan’ of his, I’m really not too fussed, I buy based on various factors depending on what I’m buying and my personal knowledge of a product vs ease/price/availability. Sometimes that’s local, sometimes Amazon, sometimes nasty-multi-corp or a specialist many miles away.

I’ll won’t be boycotting chiggle, HofF or Evans, but nor will they get all my cash.

*awaits Mary Portas to be a poster😉

Lbs is the way forward - I'll be boycotting any products or bramds Mike Ashley tries to pedal....

Terrible for those who have lost their jobs.

I'm no great fan of Mike Ashley either. But he didn't break CRC/Wiggle.

Rubbish for all the employees, but I'll wait and see what happens before completely boycotting. They might have some more bargains....

I paid about £60 for 2 pairs of five tens, surely he didn't make any money on them?!?

Wonder if I'll get my bike back ??

German cycling giant purchases mail order specialist Merlin Cycles (cyclingindustry.news)

Oooh, does that mean we can get rosebikes and bikeparts.de prices again?

Or will they just continue milking us for every last penny?

That's truly crap 😔

Feel so sorry for all the staff at CRC and the brands - especially Nukeproof as the guys who work there are all enthusiastic riders and great to chat with.

Perhaps Mr Ashley will suprise us with this one and let the brands keep going..

I'd hate to see a Ragley or Nukeproof BSO in the shops......

What a sad and ignominious end for Chain Reaction, after all the stuff we've been through together over the years- my first purchase was an emergency wheel late on a Saturday from the Ballyclare shop back in the days when you rode the same bike in DH on Saturday and XC on Sunday.

Less attached to Wiggle, but will also be missed.

I thought it was a good sign that after the panic selloff of Hope brakes cheaply, that they'd gone out and restocked them, selling back at the normal price- surely they must have had to pay up front to restock? How did that work when they were in administration?

He’s saved more high street shops than all* the people on this forum I suspect,

It's impossible to say for certain, but it's pretty likely high streets would need a bit less saving if it weren't for the aggressive business practices of (especially) Sports Direct.

The irony of this thread and the cheap 5.10s thread running at the same time is brilliant.

The absolute scumbag, buy the IP and bin the rest. Words fail me as to how this has been able to happen, complete and utter greed from all of them

I'm not a Mike Ashley fan, but this is kind of what happens when businesses go tits up like this. The "absolute scumbags" in all of this are the likes of signa who went and crashed Chiggle.

Ashley is just doing what he's known for, picking over the corpse of a dead retail business and buying up the bits that are worth something to him, which would mostly appear to be the websites and trade/brand IP.

The whole Mike Ashley hate thing is weird

My objection to Ashley is the way he reduces once great brands to a label to slap on some cheap Chinese tat. Of course, if people insist on buying CCT they can, but it doesn't have to say Karrimor, Muddy Fox, or Nukeproof on it. Better to leave those names to die a natural death than keep them around as Ashley's zombies.

Mike Ashley doesn’t run the companies into the ground that he buys. The fault 100% lies with the current owners of Wiggle/CRC.

I’m no great fan of Mike Ashley either. But he didn’t break CRC/Wiggle.

True, but he hasn't saved the staff from being made redundant either - he's waited until the company was on its knees and bought the branding only.

He hasn't bought any of the wealth of experience the staff have, saved jobs, lively hoods etc. Done nothing that affects hundreds of people. The man is consistently a retail vulture, picking at the bones of businesses and then regurgitating them back up as cheap imitations.

The irony of this thread and the cheap 5.10s thread running at the same time is brilliant.

100% this. 100's of pairs that have popped up on FB marketplace now at over inflated prices which I find depressing.

True, but he hasn’t saved the staff from being made redundant either – he’s waited until the company was on its knees and bought the branding only.

That was the job of the previous owners - they screwed up. If there was a company left to save the Administrators could have got more money for it.

The irony of this thread and the cheap 5.10s thread running at the same time is brilliant.

Faux outrage only lasts until it hits the right price. Nobody was bashing him when he was selling dirt cheap specialized enduros a few months back either.

If it gets to the point where he is coming in for a business it was long ruined before he got there.

A company went bust

To pay off creditors they sold the brand names

I’d rather it wasn’t Mike Ashley that bought them. I’d rather the business had found a buyer for the infrastructure and employees. But the recievers job is to obtain as much as they can for the assets to pay off creditors.

It’s such a shame. It’s bad enough that the operations staff will be out of a job looking for another employer to use their skills in warehousing/logisitics/CS. But their skills will transfer well to other jobs if they can find them, though they may miss their teams. I feel more for the (probably very small) teams of product managers, engineers and buyers that were making a really good job of brands like nukeproof and vitus. Those teams are gone.

That was the job of the previous owners

From what I understand of the situation the owners had 150mil of investment removed by investors. If I took a large proportion of investment out of my business it would fold too 🤷‍♂️.

If there was a company left to save the Administrators could have got more money for it.

crc's been the Benchmark shop for telesales and internet cycling sales for as long as I've been riding. I wonder how many other big cycling brands will go pop this year, crc/wiggle cirtainly won't be the last. The issues are industry wide rather than single company centric.

The issues also seem, at least to me, to go far wider than the cycling industry, all parts of post pandemic retail is in complete turmoil at the moment.

Hang on, a year ago Wiggle/CRC were the enemy..?

This was posted on Facebook half an hour ago:

“I have been running the bike workshop for WiggleCRC for the last 2.5/3 years .... sadly its came to an end for us all , if anyone needs or knows of anyone who needs some experienced bike mechanics I can put in touch with 20+ of some of the best ...MTB experts  , Roadie fanatics and all rounders and even an old rockstar who's built 98% of the ebikes that's came through ,who also does Rod Stewart tributes to keep you entertained. Also a badass MHE driver who can drive anything and is more of a machine than the trucks he operates.....They've all achieved some great things and accomplished every hurdle along the way and this sad news is nothing to do with these legends they've smashed everything thrown at them.”

Say hello to £4.99 delivery charges 😐

year ago Wiggle/CRC were the enemy..?

Only at war with the lbs never the Consumer?

Like many, I bought my first MTB/ATB at butler cycles which became wiggle and upgraded bits on it through various phone calls to the original crc bike shop

I suppose it's much the same that supermarkets are the enemy of the corner shop. Tesco are currently actively and directly trying to kill off the small local shop with changes at Booker.

IP purchase - I really hate this kind of thing. Not just selling Chiggle to Ashley, but the whole concept right from the sole trader to the SME to this sort of deal. You are basically selling the brand recognition and the reputation (and maybe the client list) to a totally different person or organisation who have done nothing to deserve it. It's tantamount to fraud in my books. You are basically conning the unaware consumer that the new owners/operators deserve to be trusted the same as the old ones. It's a bag of shite.

Lbs is the way forward –

It really isn't. I've been cycling long enough to have been buying cycling tat before the internet. Unless you are very very lucky the LBS experience is bobbins. Always was - we just didn't have a choice back in the day. Online shopping has led to choice, availability and price improvements in pretty much every type of retail sector and no reason for cycling to be any different. Advice and spannering are the LBS USP and for me.....my knowledge (with a few mins of google to add specifics to a broader understanding) and practical skills are plenty good enough for it not to be a benefit. They are just not needed for me.

edit - lovely message from that Wiggle workshop manager.

You know that banner at the top of the home page that says Singletrack Forum powered by Chainreaction...

They are just not needed for me.

You can't have you cake and eat it.... Saying IP buy outs are bad because

You are basically conning the unaware consumer that the new owners/operators deserve to be trusted the same as the old ones. It’s a bag of shite.

But local shops are not required just because your knowledge is larger than the average consumer.

There's a place for both. My LBS is excellent and also does significant trade on the internet with regular great deals. I often buy from them online and pick up in store, within hours.

but the whole concept right from the sole trader to the SME to this sort of deal. You are basically selling the brand recognition and the reputation (and maybe the client list) to a totally different person or organisation who have done nothing to deserve it. It’s tantamount to fraud in my books. You are basically conning the unaware consumer that the new owners/operators deserve to be trusted the same as the old ones. It’s a bag of shite.

Couldn't agree more. This has happened to countless brands under SportsDirect, Karrimor already mentioned above.

Buy in the last of the good stuff people trust, then downgrade the production and manufacturing to the usual sweat shops, until it eventually gives up.

M.Ashley might not be doing anything wrong and it was for the owners to save etc, but the whole practice still stinks.

Gutting. So sorry for the staff, team members and anyone sponsored by them.

You can’t have you cake and eat it

Of course I can. I've lost a fast food outlet, but I've still got Sigma, Merlin, SJS, Spa, Brixton, and then tredz, the german mob and BikeINN if I'm desperate. All significantly better for me than anything I could call a LBS (although I appreciate Sigma, SJS, Spa, Brixton and even Merlin are someone's LBS, just not mine - although ironically Butler's Cycles was my LBS at one point.

But local shops are not required just because your knowledge is larger than the average consumer.

To me they are not, no. And haven't been for decades. For others, they might be great - maybe. I've overheard so much terrible terrible advice come out of the mouths of randoms on the shop floor's of LBSs on the rare occasions I step in one that I'd doubt it's always as good as the recipient might think.

Oh man! I loved CRC. As far as i was concerned, they were my LBS. Lots of great advice when added, huge choice, excellent prices. Nothing comes (came) close to.

I used to use Evans a lot, but after Mike Ashley got his claws in they went seriously downhill.

On a practical, i was about to buy a brand-x dropper post. Is it possible to buy? Will i reveive it? Will Mike Ashley get my money? How does it work now; if at all?

You know that banner at the top of the home page that says Singletrack Forum powered by Chainreaction…

A business transaction that STW is now unlikely to get paid for...

I thought they'd already been paid for it, which is why it's still there.

I largely stopped using CRC after the Wiggle takeover, so Ashley picking over the bones isn't going to make much difference. Shame though, I was ordering from their MBUK ads back in the 90s.

Do they know where Ragley is at all?

Off at a tangent slightly but Karrimor always get a mention of having been ruined by Ashley but their boots were shit and the brand past its best in the 90s. Muddy Fox gry mentioned in the article as well and they were also garbage long before Ashley acquired the brand.

Back to the present day though it is a shame about Chiggle imho as DHB/Vitus/NP etc. was genuinely good kit and the service was decent.

Its not like the guy is Phillip Green ffs

reverse snobbery imo