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Oh no!
BBC News - Norton Motorcycles goes into administration
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51303905
Another British manufacturing institution gone 🙁
is that not about its 3rd or 4th incarnation anyway?
Just saw that news. It begs the question (for HMRC), if a company ‘reasonably’ requests an extension for settlement of a bill. Is it better to extend by 3mths or 6mths than see a business collapse and jobs lost ... and onward consequences on the supply chain.
TJ - reading the article suggests it's in it's 2nd incarnation having been rescued by a UK property developer.
Not the right forum to comment on more of the same resulting from....you know what.
They've been borderline for a while, and as the article says, it's not his only business in trouble
Gah - thought this might have been the anti virus lot.
Its well more than the second incarnation. Its the second incarnation of the modern twins. the original went bust way back. the rotary manufacturer went bust at least once.
It was only ever a marginal business with insufficient investment. Its a shame - I'd have loved to see them go on to be a major manufacturer like Hinkley triumph
There have been rumours of monies taken and product not delivered alongside iffy QA (oil leaks/porous heads/gearboxes that explode) for a while. Seems like unlike Triumph they tried to be a "traditional" British motorcycle company, and this is how that always ends. I don't think we can pin this one on the "b" word.
Gah – thought this might have been the anti virus lot.
Norton hasn't been Norton for like 30 years, it's a brand under Symantec these days. Nonetheless, that was my first reaction too.
Me too! The antivirus thing
Phew. Thought it was Graham !
Just saw that news. It begs the question (for HMRC), if a company ‘reasonably’ requests an extension for settlement of a bill. Is it better to extend by 3mths or 6mths than see a business collapse and jobs lost … and onward consequences on the supply chain.
HMRC seems very much more focussed on return and stopping arrears lately (excessive arrears is a big cause of directors being banned too recently). What will be interesting is come 6 April their incentive to cooperate in new rescue plans will potentially reduce further with the return of preferential status in insolvency proceedings for many taxes (those most commonly due in insolvency as it happens!).
It was announced to much fanfare a couple of years ago but it's actual impact on the rescue culture, insolvency costs and on returns to floating charge secured creditors and unsecured creditors (like trade suppliers) didn't really get much attention. Many of the potential impacts were rather over simplified in the mainstream press.
I was expecting an Ed Norton thread.
Anyone remember Matchless - as in motorbikes?
Brand name was bought by Italian family who built the Belstaff brand (another British company) and then sold it.
Developed the Matchless range of leather jackets and coats, some of which appeared in Star Wars and have been worn by Arnie in Terminator re-boots.
Will they - or any other fashion company - try the same with Norton?
Liquidators will want to turn assets into cash - and quickly; how much is the brand name worth and how could it be monetised?
Brand extension, licensing?
Interestingly - or nerdishly - the Matchless four stroke twin was superseded by the Norton twin more than 50 years ago as part of the consolidation of the UK motorcycle industry.
how much is the brand name worth
Close to zero would be my guess.
Hols - that's probably why it would be attractive to an entrepreneur.
Trying to revive a dead manufacturer's name is just a labelling exercise. All the world has lost is a label, not the heritage which was lost 50 years ago.
My sympathies for the workers who may lose their jobs.
Mention up there of Belstaff.
Frightening finances, with £48million loss on £31 million of sales.
HebTroCo just entered its fifth year of trading and we’ve not made a loss yet. Though there’s time!
Wasn't the owner a massive chancer with a dodgy background in fireworks?
Belstaff - has the sales number got anything to do with a limited market for 500 GBP wax jackets?
Odd - when they used to be the staple of the skint student biker on the late '70s ( but then again, so were Lewis Leathers).
Norton, in it current incarnation, has been going down the tubes for ages ... I would guess mis-management and an inability to deliver the product to the market hasn't helped cash flow. The tax rebate for R&D costs is a little bit of a ruse.
Close to zero would be my guess.
Pretty sure your guess would be wrong, anyone wanting to enter the motorcycle market or other branding market would get a huge amount of publicity and brand loyalty from it. Would Brough Superior be able to sell £60k motorbikes with out the BS badge?
If you cant sell your product you go bust. Thats business really.
If I was a billionair Id still think twice about rescuing a business that makes motorcycles that use petrol.
Sure, there will be room for a tiny number of sales as a niche product, but thats unlikey to support a large workforce. Norton is an old name which will have no meaning / value to a young market. Young people dont buy cars anymore, let alone motorikes sadly.
It begs the question (for HMRC), if a company ‘reasonably’ requests an extension for settlement of a bill. Is it better to extend by 3mths or 6mths than see a business collapse and jobs lost … and onward consequences on the supply chain.
I don't think you can give a generic answer to that, it needs to be judged case-by-case. If a business is unable to discharge its liabilities when due, then there is a high probability (although far from a certainty) that it is at death's door. Extension may just deliver more losses to the public purse (another few months of PAYE payments missed, or another quarter's VAT).
I can't see anywhere on the news reports (I've not looked widely) as to what the tax bill is. That might make a difference - if it's Corporation Tax (levied on profits) then that, iirc looks a little different from VAT - in the case of the latter the money was never the firm's to begin with - they've collected the tax on behalf of the government, and then spent it.
Lots of companies in the latter stages of going down the toilet use the government as a relatively cheap source of working capital - the initial penalties if you're late with your PAYE are very light (for a first offence anyway), certainly compared to the commercial rates a distressed business would be forced to pay if they could even access any.
On the other hand, if a business can come up with a credible repayment plan (and "credible" is the crucial word here) then they will, IME, come to an arrangement, and quite right that they should. Winding up orders are the last, not the first, resort for tax arrears and often follow such agreements being broken.
Just saw that news. It begs the question (for HMRC), if a company ‘reasonably’ requests an extension for settlement of a bill. Is it better to extend by 3mths or 6mths than see a business collapse and jobs lost … and onward consequences on the supply chain.
They're pretty lenient, we've had endless deferrals due to cash flow problems, but eventually their patience runs out (eg you get a winding up petition arrive in the post).
Belstaff – has the sales number got anything to do with a limited market for 500 GBP wax jackets?
Odd – when they used to be the staple of the skint student biker on the late ’70s ( but then again, so were Lewis Leathers).
Indeed they were the poor man’s Barbour, then they upped the price and the Flashheart’s of the world were all over them.
I’d heard that the owner had swindled the government out of a substantial amount of money for a job creation scheme that never materialised.
John McGuinness was looking for him via Twitter a few weeks ago, presumably for money owed as he was supposed to be contracted for this years Northwest and TT.
anyone wanting to enter the motorcycle market or other branding market would get a
hugetiny amount of publicity and brand loyalty from it
FTFY
Trimix - Triumph bought the name and went from nothing to a major world player in a decade or so. However the investment required was many times what Norton got.
If you cant sell your product you go bust. Thats business really.
Yeah, just look at Harley-Davidson’s current situation...
Wee article from the guardian hinting that things weren't at all above board...
Yeah, just look at Harley-Davidson’s current situation…
As far back as I remember (early 70's) Harley has run the whole gamut of good times/mediocre times/bad times many times over.
There seems to have been a lot of strange stuff going on around Norton. Weird pensions. Several frauds perpetrated by senior staff. Not to mention Sick bicycle style bike horizons (next month, the month after, we’re just starting it now and delivery will be... never).
HebTroCo just entered its fifth year of trading and we’ve not made a loss yet. Though there’s time!
If you're going to go bust, go big or go home! Owe the bank several million and it's their problem.
Admittedly, I’m not a motorcycle aficionado, but I have always liked them, yet I have never in my life heard of Norton.
Eh? Possibly the most famous bike brand in the uk. Multiple tt wins!
Only produced a handful of bikes in the last 20 years tho
I remember watching this tour with John McGuiness a while back too.
Also Henry Cole on the Motorbike show did a series where they customised a Dominator(I think) and unveiled it to the Norton folks.
Somewhere in this video.
£48million loss on £31 million of sales.
😯
Ah, so thats the problem then. Sale price was lower than build cost. No wonder they went bust.
Their stand at the NEC in November must have cost a bob or two. It's a crying shame anyway. That new 650 looked promising. Surely they can be rescued .....
They would need serious money to become anything other than a very small scale manufacturer that would always be at risk. IIRC John Bloor put £150 million into Truimph before they started making money.
Also Triumph also started by producing motorcycles that normal motorcyclists wanted (Kawasaki engine format homages) rather than esoteric modern day classics, that cost a fortune and are bought by some old duffer who saw one on the island in 1947 be raced by Arthur Sprogget and has dreamt of one ever since. It was a reasonable amount of time before the retro side was introduced and plugged, by then they’d already established themselves. They also make most of their bikes in Thailand iirc
It's a shame, but Norton has been back more times than Eminem. The brand could do with a revamp like Triumph had, although as TJ said, that's a fair wedge of a gamble to get back on track. Triumph also has the cache of the Steve McQueen links and they embraced the recent boom custom cafe/bobber/brat culture that's big with IT managers and beard growers.
Had they done something more like what Triumph has done with the Bonneville, a progressive update to the classic design, Norton may have turned more heads with their modern bikes. Unfortunately, they seemed to be expensive oddities rather than good everyday bikes
They Commando just seems too far removed from the original style
£15,000 as well, A Bonnie is £9500
Fugly ballooned rear end on that commando.
Quite like this one though.
kilo
...rather than esoteric modern day classics, that cost a fortune and are bought by some old duffer who saw one on the island in 1947 be raced by Arthur Sprogget and has dreamt of one ever since....
As one of the old duffers, my memory of Nortons are not good. Their twins were absolute shite. Great looking for a 5 mile trip to the cafe, but would vibrate the blood out off your knuckles on anything over that (I had an Atlas). Their singles were good, but that was old man in a raincoat territory.
I thought the Commandos were an improvement, but they didn't have the precision of the Featherbeds, and they were fragile (I exploded a couple of engines). Then there was the incinerations of riders when the petrol tank burst in crashes (I knew of 2).
Sadly the 850 would have been a good fix, but by then there were far superior bikes available from the Germans and Japanese, and people like me had learned to distrust Norton.
About all I can say in their favour was that they polished up nicely.
If neo-Norton had done a road going version of a Manx at a reasonable price (ie not stratospheric, but not necessarily cheap), I'd have been all over it. My Manx was the last Norton that was any good.
The Norton V4 was hardly some retro classic homage thing - a lot of engineering went into that bike (and that engineering / testing was supported by other companies in the UK so it wasn't just knocking out something unproven that the stylist drew up). I worked with a couple of their guys and I'm sad to see them go.
mick_r
The Norton V4 was hardly some retro classic homage thing – a lot of engineering went into that bike (and that engineering / testing was supported by other companies in the UK so it wasn’t just knocking out something unproven that the stylist drew up)....
But it was unproven as far as its target market was concerned, ie people with the money for a luxury purchase and nostalgia for the brand. The trouble being their last memories of the brand.
It may have been better to aim at a lower price point and target younger people with no experience of Norton.
I can understand the nostalgia comments about the Commando etc, but not really the V4. I'll admit I'm an outsider to the motorbike scene, but it seemed to be aimed at the modern day TT fan / middle aged and affluent born again biker (not a Bert Scroggins fan from 60 years ago).
But I do agree it was just a huge chunk of cash compared to other established and very capable bikes. I think the younger and cheaper end of the market was never a viable option without an unachievable increase in production volumes. So I guess that all leads to where they are today....
> https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/30/taken-for-a-ride-how-norton-motorcycles-collapsed-amid-acrimony-and-scandal < Makes for grim reading.
The racing arm did alright for a while. But there was no chance expensive, quirky, unreliable, rotary engine bikes would outsell Fireblades!
Member
If you cant sell your product you go bust. Thats business really.
Selling them - and taking customers money - wasn't their issue: building and delivering them was.
Plenty rumours going around, and many customers and staff alike who were taken in by the charm and gravitas of Stuart Garner who feel a bit stupid, with hindsight.
Search Twitter for @notnorton_moto, and be prepared to need a few mugs of tea to read it all...
I still get served merch ads on Instagram - 60% off!
I'm assuming the 49% is a non-refundable deposit
The latest news yesterday was an owner went to pick up his (paid for, and delivered befoehand) £44k bike from the factory. It had gone back for a warranty repair on the paintwork.
What he found was a frame and engine, with a few ancillaries.Everything else had disappeared. The rumour was that the bits had been put onto an incomplete bike to be able to sell a new bike with the bits off his bike.
It doesn't get any better I'm afraid......
https://www.superbike.co.uk/article/norton-was-it-a-fraud-from-the-start
I didn't realise he's wrecked Spondon as well. What a sad end to a British Engineering firm.