Planet X – In Administration

A real shame if they go. They’ve served me well for many years.

Just ordered a couple of pairs of sunglasses and a new lid.

For those who like “wayfarer” type frames the Carnac ones are an absolute bargain at £9.99. Already got a couple of pairs, but having spares makes sense as the kids keep “borrowing” them.

Is their ‘closing down sale’ going to be an actual sale though?

I’m not celebrating their demise, and obviously I have sympathies for the employees, but it’s not hard to see that my statement was approaching this from a business perspective rather than a personal/human one, surely? Unless you choose to willingly try and misunderstood it that way?

Not how I read it, which came across to me as ‘Good, **** em’

Especially as it’s employee owned, so it wouldn’t just be a lost job, it’s also potentially a lost investment.

Apologies for misinterpreting.

A real shame, hopefully something can be sorted to keep the business going

Of the bikes that I’ve owned the two that ive done by far the most miles on and have the greatest memories of were Planet X bikes, a Compo and a Ti Sportive.

Is their ‘closing down sale’ going to be an actual sale though?

Prices will be going up this week ahead of the closing sale.

I wonder how much business they have lost to Sonder over the past few years, as they seem to compete head on in the “good value UK bike direct sales” segment…

Real bummer if they do go bust. Ive had a few bike from them and alwys been great. My PX Pro Carbon Evo is great, such a nice bike to ride. Even the baggy seat tube London Road I had for £150 frame and forks lasted me a good 7 or 8 years before developing a small crack, literally thousands of miles on and off road on theat thing though.

The best thing they did was produce loads of different styles of bar for cheap, so you could experiment to get the right fit – and they did a huge range of cheap stems too.

Nah, the best thing they did was their softshell gloves.

😀

From the linked report:

According to a company report for the year ended 29 March 2022, the firm generated a turnover of nearly £17m in FY 2021/22, down from £19.1m in FY 2020/21. Pre-tax profits for the period were £1.1m (FY 2021/21: £2.8m).

I’m not in the bike industry but I was given to understand margins are generally slimmer than those numbers might indicate, at least for for the big boys.

It reads like they were still a profitable business last year, and had been tracking with the C19 cycling boom and subsequent downturn.

Have sales/margins turned that much further down inside of a year?

I do find myself wondering about other similar Far-Eastern import merchants now.
PX/OO had been adding more soft goods and bike-packing/camping type stuff to their site in the last year or two, I had assumed it was in order to keep up with Alpkit/Sonder who kind of occupy a similar niche in the market, but obviously started with clothing/outdoor kit and then broadened to bikes (Sonder’s range seems a bit more sensibly structured too IMO)…

I do wonder if Bicycle manufacturer’s/suppliers are going to be the ones suffering more in the coming couple of years where discretionary spending on new bikes slows down as punter’s disposable cash is squeezed.

Have sales/margins turned that much further down inside of a year?

firm generated a turnover of nearly £17m in FY 2021/22,

Pre-tax profits for the period were £1.1m

So about 6.5%, (down from near 15) not hard to imagine that vanishing with cost increases and general spending reduction over the last 12 months.

Excessive lead times broke the model that companies have been running for a long time, and for complete bike businesses (even if thats not 100% of your business) thats a big issue. Weve also seen far eastern factories just shut down leaving companies with big orders with companies like SRAM or Shimano and no frames to hang them on. The bike industry supply chain has been a total s*** show for 2 years now. You’d have been better off just not buying anything during lockdown, selling everything in your warehouse and waiting it out.

Then what we’re seeing is companies not paying suppliers the bills, because they can’t, and suppliers tightening the noose on those that can, because they need the cash from somewhere, which then puts the better off businesses under strain too. Its easing off now but its been a rough ride for sure. I suspect that alot of high street retailers will be under pressure now as the ripple takes time to work through the supply chain.

Who do I blame FWIW? We’ll I think if suppliers had taken the sensible approach of saying you can only order 110% of what you ordered last year*, then no one would have ended up with freakin’ huge, ultimately pointless orders on their books and gotten everyone into this mess.

* I did make this suggestion to more than one company.

If they go that really does cut a key player from the value end of the market

The gx scandal was is a really great bike for the money. For a bit over a grand get a bike that would do years of mountain biking without feeling there was a weak link to upgrade. I’m assuming that you bought a dropper for it

Not only do we loose that bike but it takes the price pressure off the competitors

Maybe on the On One bit can be sold and saved

The best thing they did was produce loads of different styles of bar for cheap, so you could experiment to get the right fit – and they did a huge range of cheap stems too.

I’d forgotten about Mary Bars etc.

They are an ‘Employee Owned Trust’ these days (maybe for 3 or 4 or 5 years ??? – open to being corrected on how long).
How did that come about / how was any purchase from the original Mr XXXXX get funded ? Did that leave the new entity in debt that increasing interest rates starts getting harder to pay? Or was it gifted for a peppercorn to the minions for years of toil ?
Anyone know ?

Or was it gifted for a peppercorn to the minions for years of toil ?

I doubt that anyone gifts a multi-million pound company!

I probably put that in to balance the options in my question !

Maybe on the On One bit can be sold and saved

Be interesting to what falls out the pockets when the administrators give them a shake.

Do they still have any rights to Tomac? Guerciotti? S.A.P*?

*three letters, began with S, probably Italian?

Of the actual bikes though, the Holdsworth Corsa looks nice (and they shouldn’t have dropped the Columbus tubed version, just given it disk brakes). The Trail bikes are very good, but do any of the others have a “brand” other than the Scandal. The Hello Dave has a cult following, but not sure if that translates into new sales once everyone who want’s that extreme a bike has bought one. The Rujo looks good, but lacks a USP in a market flooded with gravel bikes.

It’d be nice to see them reborn in the way most of us probably remember them 20 years ago, as sort of UK specific Surly. Trouble is, I can’t see that being a competitive proposition to the administrators compared someone like Sports Direct or JD Sports who could rationalize it with their Evans or Go Outdoors business?

Might need to see what a Pro Carbon Disc frame costs at the moment as I need a larger one soon for someone who is growing.
It made sense to buy him something nice where I could get an identical spec but larger frame as he grew.

May be a problem now.

Shame to read, have read rumours of this for at least a month, used them lots over the last ~15 years mostly for clothing and components, rather than a bike (those poor QC seat tubes on the London Roads a while ago really made me wary). Hopefully some of the company can be salvaged for the staff.

How does the employee owned model work then?

I presume someone is still in charge and all 50 employees don’t all try and dib-in with ideas and opposing ways of working.

Employee owned companies can and do still have entirely traditional hierarchy based structures (John Lewis is a classic example here), I’d be surprised if it was just 50 of them sat around a table trying to hash out exactly what do to.

There’s also mention of a Trust so my understanding would be that it’s the Trust that actually owns the company, on behalf of its employees. I’d assume this means that (apart from their livelihoods) the employees don’t stand to lose any shares or investments in the firm, but I could be very wrong about this.

looking at the financial statements for 2022YE the writings been on the wall for some time; [2021 >\to 2022]
– TOO MUCH stock £3.5m > £5.3m
– funded by £600k trade creditors and banks loans £0.75m > £5.6m
– brexit, sales to EU down £2.6m > £0.81m
– terrible cashflow

cash is king,

** note 2021 boosted by covid/cycle uptake

Dam I really like their cheap road helmets they were an absolute bargain compared to overpriced stuff of similar / worse quality.

Looking just now thought they are now £26 which is expensive !

There’s plenty of infornation online about EOTs.
PX is substantially/fully owned by Planet X EOT trustees who, earlier this year, were subject to a first proposal to dissolve which was then removed.
The PX strategic report as lodged with Companies House as part of the annual report and accounts includes comments about performance and risks; see also Accounting Policies 1.3 Going Concern.
A statement from PX about their current trading status would be helpful as the uncertainty is likely to depress sales.

If/when assets are sold off it will be interesting to see what they do with their collection of ex-Jimmy Saville bikes.

That’s real shame. Their Whippet is one of the best bikes I’ve ever owned.

They stole from me just as brazenly as people who busted in my garage door… But it’s an unrecognisable company now, they do some things the same but they don’t seem to do that so much. I’ve got a Titus Loco Moto waiting to be built up and I told myself “remember the warranty is probably worthless”, maybe I was right? But the ti frame was the price of an aluminium frame. Considering lead times, storage costs, all that time the cash is tied up there can’t be much profit in that, especially compared to competitors.

But I hope they pull through.

My current and only bike is a Titus Fireline. It’s been great. It is the only thing I’ve purchased from them as I was always put off by horror stories and pricing roulette. Glad I took the plunge.

I’ve been trying various avenues to get in touch with PlanetX to get some questions answered but no luck yet. Will post info when I get it.

– TOO MUCH stock £3.5m > £5.3m
– funded by £600k trade creditors and banks loans £0.75m > £5.6m
– brexit, sales to EU down £2.6m > £0.81m
– terrible cashflow

Brexit aside that’s just the symptoms/evidence of what Ben was saying.

Easy to see how you could end up with a warehouse of expensive SRAM groupsets, forks and brakes tying up £millions while you wait on yet another delayed order of frames. And their T&C’s won’t let them sell the SRAM kit except on a complete bike.

So they get hit from all sides, spent money on stock they can’t sell, can’t sell any bikes as they don’t have frames, possibly already having paid for the frames as the suppliers tighten their credit terms. And if you’re not selling anything you have no turnover. And if you haven’t got the turnover you can’t order the next batch.

Bit of history, ref the employee ownership:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/11/18/planet-x-to-become-employee-owned-says-founder-dave-loughran/?sh=3ec6955a1fac

Dave Loughran to sign Planet X business over to employee ownership

love my Whippet, also Ruji Gravel…… hope works out…….

The Forbes article is a bit light on details, except I think we can all agree this is a crime against humanity.

introducing PowerBar energy bars to the U.K.

Sorry to hear this too. Got a Titus Silk Road from them last year, great bike with good customer service when I was asking doofy spec questions when deciding whether to pull the trigger. Just ordered some silly cheap Sram rival 1x shifter on Sat after much procrastination, hope they turn up.
Do feel very sorry for the staff involved.

Planet X EOT trustees who, first proposal to dissolve which was then removed.

I’d say that is related to their confirmation statement being filed late, rather than an administration wind up. After warning letters, Co House use this as a shot across the bows hence it gives them 2 months to comply. Causes no end of hassle for their credit rating so is best avoided, unless attention is diverted elsewhere, like finding cash to pat staff & suppliers…..

A real shame. PX (& On One) really influenced both the sort of bikes a lot of use rode and the direct selling model as the internet became a thing. I had a bit of sponsorship from Dave back the (triathlon) day. There was always a bit of chaos in terms of interaction. When small it was almost part of the appeal – you felt like you were dealing with real people spinning plates to make it all work. That ‘chaos’ didn’t scale up too well when more folk were involved their side and the customer base became more (I’m struggling for a word) normal and possibly picky.

I do feel they lost their way a bit. I’m not sure what buying up all the different brand names was all about. Titus, Holdsworth etc. I just got confused tbh. It felt like (because I think it probably was) the result of buying up brands and businesses about to go pop, along with the contents of their warehouses. It came at a moment when they could have built a clear and identifiable single brand name, much in the same way Alpkit did with Sonder. And for a while the website was a bit garish (in not a good way), full of sales and tat. The good stuff (and by that I mean properly solid and effective and importantly good value for money bikes and frames) bread and butter got buried. Looking at the site now though I’d say it’s much better – to a certain extent a lot of us have preconceptions about what they are which might not be quite right now in 2023.

Whatever – I don’t like the direction the bike world is going. So many 2nd tier online retailers folding along with the bricks and mortar shops added to the amalgamation off some of the premiere league retailers. Value and innovation it is not.

Didn’t know anything about this, ordered something last night, it’s apparently coming tomorrow.

Didn’t know anything about this, ordered something last night, it’s apparently coming tomorrow.

Even if it enters administration, the administrators will keep it trading whilst they consider the options. Shutting it all down asap is the fastest way to kill off any residual value.

Was suspicious by the amount of stuff that was unavailable following heavy discounting a few months back, the website is absolutely depleted compared to what they used to have. Which may be a good thing, there was some amount of crap but also plenty of decent stuff as well. As said already, if they concentrated on core brands/models they could go back to being a UK Surly (without the extortionate price tag for a frame that cracks)

@stwhannah

I’ve been trying various avenues to get in touch with PlanetX to get some questions answered but no luck yet. Will post info when I get it.

You missed one: Brant Brant Brant!

(I know he’s not anything to do with them now but may still have contacts)