“Zyro has announced the acquisition of Fisher Outdoor Leisure, merging the two businesses together to create Zyro-Fisher; a new distributor of Parts, Accessories and Clothing to the UK and Irish cycling markets.”

Don’t know what this will mean for consumers if anything at all but it is a lot of major brands all coming from 1 place now.

Surprised at that. Always thought Zyro were a smaller outfit than Fisher.

That’s got to be a massive leverage deal?! No way are Zyro big enough to take Fisher surely? I know they’ve got private equity firm on board but Fisher had to be looking to sell there surely.

This made me laugh:

“Our industry is clearly entering a consolidation phase and I am delighted with the combination of these two strong and complementary companies to create a scale player able to offer future-proof service and solutions to its partners.”

as did this

“This is an exciting development for the combined business, its brand partners and its customers, creating a company with a truly differentiated proposition in terms of scale, reach and value-added services. Together, the board and management team bring an unrivalled level of expertise, which will help to deliver a clear growth strategy in an evolving sector.”

Hope everyone gets to keep their jobs while the MBAs do “business”.

Wooo one of the most incompetent companies buys one that at least tries.

Last time couple of times ive newsing with mates in their shops they reckoned zyro were going to go belly up as everything was always out of stock etc…… Guess they were wrong.

It’ll make life easier for Wiggle megacorp to buy all the other distributors over the next few years if they all merge themselves in the meantime 😉

Mates wife is works for zyro so either woohoo, more cheap stuff or boohoo for her job! 😥 😯 😀

My old school friend was recently ousted as boss of fisher (Richard Allmark) …..I think it was hostile. Perhaps they had this deal in mind?

Hope everyone gets to keep their jobs

They’re apparently consolidating at the Zyro site, so not too sure about that.

It worries me that there’s so much venture capital being poured into the bike industry. Venture Capitalists want their money back and a lot more, and sharpish. I was happier when money made in the bike industry stayed in the bike industry.

Wonder if that’s why zyro moved premises a while back. Put a lot of miles on my friends wife’s commute.

bencooper – Member
It worries me that there’s so much venture capital being poured into the bike industry. Venture Capitalists want their money back and a lot more, and sharpish. I was happier when money made in the bike industry stayed in the bike industry.

It does all sound like it’s just another business to be bought, streamlined and sold on again for a fat profit. There’s not much about customer service in those quotes (though to be fair the MD/CEO’s quote was more focused on that side of things).

I feel sorry for the small shops that have to deal with these mega corps. . . . .

Fishers once took £13,000 off my Amex card by mistake 😀

I feel sorry for the small shops that have to deal with these mega corps. . .

On the other hand though it does give the distributor far greater power to refuse to sell at massive discounts to the likes of crc should they wish to [make more profit on the same volume of sales]. That can be a good thing for smaller retailers by producing some parity in buying prices, as opposed to the current state of affairs where crc often retail cheaper than small shops can purchase from a distributor.

It’ll never happen though.

bencooper +1

On the other hand though it does give the distributor far greater power to refuse to sell at massive discounts to the likes of crc should they wish to [make more profit on the same volume of sales].

They dont do that though do they? I understood CRC et.al got their stuff cheap stuff direct from manufacturers. Ideally this ‘mega-corp’ would be able to hold back contracts they do have with sellers who get other stock through discount channels. But pretty sure that sort of thing would be against anti-competition laws?

On the other hand though it does give the distributor far greater power to refuse to sell at massive discounts to the likes of crc should they wish to [make more profit on the same volume of sales]. That can be a good thing for smaller retailers by producing some parity in buying prices, as opposed to the current state of affairs where crc often retail cheaper than small shops can purchase from a distributor.

Yes, I suppose…

It’ll never happen though.

That’s more like it.

I can see the market consolidating such that independent distributors are no longer sustainable – mega-retailers like Wiggle/CRC are big enough to buy direct from the OEMs and take on lines directly so will likely sell to independent shops in due course.

They dont do that though do they? I understood CRC et.al got their stuff cheap stuff direct from manufacturers.

Yes and no. If memory serves CRC go to a variety of legit and grey distributors in both the UK and outside. Their purchasing power and warehouse holding facilities meant they could often negotiate a very low purchasing tier if they bought a lot of stock. This is both good and bad for the consumer – good because CRC could sell at a substantial discount benefitting the consumer, bad because the customer’s LBS probably couldn’t get the product because CRC had already bought them all, and even if they could they probably couldn’t get anywhere near a price match.

CRC bought their own distributor (Hotlines) and then sold stuff at a lower price than LBSs were getting them for wholesale. Ouch.

CRC bought their own distributor (Hotlines) and then sold stuff at a lower price than LBSs were getting them for wholesale. Ouch.

Ribble have been doing that for years. When I was a mechanic (20 years ago) they were importing Campag and selling it to customers at what we could buy it trade.

Firstly I’d like to state that most of these comments posted on here are of a negative nature and people are not seeing the bigger picture typical of today’s whining population some company fails everyone talks about it but when one is successful everyone wants to pull them down for nothing more than doing well bit sad really. Two established company’s merging can only be a good thing for the cycling industry and if members’ had bothered to look into what they were stating they would of seen for themselves. so for the record NJEE20 your comments regarding the size of zyro couldn’t be more wrong fisher outdoors turnover for 2015 was 32 million compared to Zyro’s 34 million for the same period as well as Zyro’s facility’s being far larger than fishers. SPEEDER again as before, I’m sure zyro are more than capable of taking the extra otherwise why would they have bothered to buy out let alone find investment and also how can you in one breath say it’s not big enough and the next state that it’s a mega corporation makes no sense, plus zyro from what I know to be fact is far from a mega corporation hell bent on capitalism more of a passionate cycling company that gives back to the industry and community probably more than any other. TRAIL RAT as for calling them incompetent I think casting falsehoods such as those purely based on the fact the item you require is out of stock is for one unfair and unjust being as zyro are a retail supplier and have no stores so I don’t know how you visited one of their stores when in fact they have none. Also id direct your attention to the latter part of your statement with English skills such as those, you my friend are in no place to call any one incompetent. In closing you all need to see this as a good thing for the future of the cycling industry I have no doubt in my mind that with a company like zyro heading this venture the only way is up and I for one look forward to see what comes from this. Rant over!.

Well that told you lot!

Hello Mr Zyro

Also id direct your attention to the latter part of your statement with English skills such as those

Weeeeelll….

do you have a valid point to make

Sorry mtbking81, I stopped trying with your post when I read the same line three times in a row.

Could you please summarise?

I don’t like zyro just because of ^^^ that guy and his mighty paragraph.

merely stating facts

New account created today, only posted on this thread. Seems legit.

The only potential facts you posted were the turnovers, which seem to support other posters saying there’s some big financing going on.

The official press releases are typical meaningless corporate flannel.

“You all need to see this as a good thing…”

No, we don’t. We can form our own opinions, and even express them in a forum.

That’s got to be a massive leverage deal?! No way are Zyro big enough to take Fisher surely?

It happens. Where I work, we’ve just been bought out by a company half the size of us.

Also id direct your attention to the latter part of your statement with English skills such as those

Help me out, is that irony or Muphry’s Law?

New account created today, only posted on this thread. Seems legit.

More than welcome to share his opinion too of course, though I’d have preferred him to declare any vested interest. (Not that it was particularly difficult for us to work out, mind).

mtbking81 – Member
do you have a valid point to make

I think he meant if you want to criticise someone’s English skills, perhaps you should study punctuation first.

Paragraphs help comprehension… 🙂

And if you are connected with either company, perhaps it would be worth a mention.

Other than that, thanks for the info. ‘Twas interesting.

And he didn’t even comprehend Trail-rat was talking about retailers having trouble getting stuff from Zyro.

I’m betting on some low-level minion getting a huff on because someone dared criticise his employer.

Steady day in PR department? Or is this the new job title of social media engineering?

VCs saddle Zyro with a big chunk of debt and high interest rates to pay for the merger – how’s that good for the industry?

Not even remotely accurate I’m merely stating that people on these forums come up with opinions based Purley on fiction without even basic investigations into what they are saying and why is it that if someone is pulling another person or company in this case down that’s OK voice an opinion that you think based on fact not rumours or heresay that you think it’s a good thing you all crawl out from your rocks to argue how I’m wrong and the only thing you have been correct about is my punctuation go figure in my defence have you tried typing a statement that long on a phone yes I’m a new user but does that make my point any less valid than someone who’s been a member years no this is a democratic nation that once over was proud of its businesses all of you that have left negative comments so far as I can see have not argued to the contrary of anything I’ve said instead you try to raise a reaction that puts me in the light of a troll or some sort of forum anarchist but the fact of the matter is I’m right and you know it so stop posting stupid comments trying to belittle me because frankly it just makes you look ridiculous

No need to mate.

Seriously, I’d give up now before you cause more embarrassment.

I do hope you aren’t employed by either Zyro or Fisher, as I think they may take a rather dim view of you posting on their behalf. 😯

mtbking – are you a fan of James Joyce, by any chance ?

😯

I work as a bike mechanic up in Scotland nowhere near St Albans or darlington so working for fishers or zyro would be quite difficult