Possible demise of CRC / Wiggle

hmmm – just remembered I bought my Ragley trig on 12 months paypal interest free finance. I wonder if it will continue as is, a demand for the outstanding or a right off.

CRC will have got the money the next day. Afraid you will have to pay it! It works like a credit card so it’s very hands off for the shop.

And not unheard of, Cotic for one example have almost exactly the same offer.

Privateer offer 60 days. I’d guess the number of people willing to fork on thousands of pounds to take the piss on the offer is very low.

Just a quick Google suggests also Trek, Ribble, Tifossi, and Rutland cycles offer it on the whole range.

Jameso. Just checked the Evans administration files. It was £87 million. They payed out £8 million to preferred creditors ie their bank

they changed the company name to make it harder to find…..

F. W. E. REALISATIONS LIMITED

Company number <strong style=”font-family: inherit; border: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit;”>02784079

Specialised and trek were taken for around 3 million each. Look at the public documents online for the full list

the crc documentation is going to make interesting reading

Neil SuperstarComponents

Do those documents say how much SD paid those creditors once they took on Evans? RE the ‘not a penny’ bit of your post.

Do those documents say how much SD paid those creditors once they took on Evans? RE the ‘not a penny’ bit of your post.

Are you saying it was a penny? 😉

SD will have paid the bare minimum in good will to keep the suppliers on board but I would be very surprised if that was close to zero.

The thing is, depending on how the business was structured it could very easily have cost the folks owning Evans very little indeed allowing them to walk away and do the same again with little more than a shrug.

Regardless though. The ripples from this will actually be pretty big waves and run a long way.

I’ve bought loads from CRC / Wiggle over the years. More recently I’ve not bought much but that’s been a general trend from me to not buy lots of stuff I don’t need. I’ve not really moved to other retailers.

In the last year I’ve bought a cheap trisuit and other bits of tri gear, bib shorts and tops etc. The dhb stuff is really good value IMO.

I for one will really miss these companies if they go under.

The thing is, depending on how the business was structured it could very easily have cost the folks owning Evans very little indeed allowing them to walk away and do the same again with little more than a shrug.

This is true. Business and tax law seems an ass to me.

They payed £8million. That’s where the small amount of debts paid off came from. It’s all listed in the documents on companies house 

SD didn’t do anything wrong, they bid what they were willing to offer and the best offer wins. It’s not their debt but the failed companies. The suppliers who offered credit terms are who got shafted

now the bit which annoys me is these big companies demand credit terms not ask. So their suppliers are effectively bankrolling the retailers with their own money. Often it’s bully boy tactics. See several of the big bike makers retrospectively demanding longer credit terms ie Giant a few months back. 

I wonder how much tax is due which our government services won’t see…. 

we will find out in the end

Neil SuperstarComponents 

Started to see murmurings of Nukeproof dropping their athletes & closing its own international distribution arms.

That’d be a terrible shame for the riders… some of them have done exceptionally well lately and with more and more companies throwing it all in, it’ll be a lot harder for them to get rides for 2024.

Yeah, athletes getting dropped already

https://www.instagram.com/p/CymnkFLuMMe/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

they changed the company name to make it harder to find…

Any evidence for this allegation of misconduct?

Nukeproof USA basically no longer exists. All staff and contractors let go, and right now they don’t even know if they’re going to get paid. Several freelancers/contractors who have already completed work also not getting paid. Individuals are losing their livelihoods. It’s all very sad. And it’s some pretty dark reading once you get into the whole Signa holdings/Benko/real estate wormhole.

Fingers crossed for better news for the UK folks.

Any evidence for this allegation of misconduct?

No misconduct, but it’s common to change the holding companies name to something different to disassociate yourselves from the indebted business. Common sense really.

Nukeproof USA basically no longer exists. All staff and contractors let go, and right now they don’t even know if they’re going to get paid. Several freelancers/contractors who have already completed work also not getting paid. Individuals are losing their livelihoods. It’s all very sad.

TBH its pretty normal for the US, their labour market is a lot more fluid than ours, other than the unionized trades. Those people will have jobs again soon enough (I hope!). Maybe not in the bike industry though, that has a way to go before hiring is a thing again.

So when are you going to get rid of the CRC strap on the top of the forum Hannah? I guess it pretty clear, they won’t be paying out….

Shoot me, but the sponsored riders are not at the top of my list of folk I feel sorry for. It’s the big stsndard employees of the Signs companies or their suppliers and the owners of the smaller supplier companies possible owed business closing amounts.

HobNob

Started to see murmurings of Nukeproof dropping their athletes & closing its own international distribution arms.

Ronan Dunne now lists himself as “Factory rider for” on Instagram, Nukeproof no longer mentioned

And it’s some pretty dark reading once you get into the whole Signa holdings/Benko/real estate wormhole.

Any chances of getting an article on it?

I’ve just received a CRC email for their latest offers, some items with a black Friday heading on, so are they still trading or what.

I know it was mentioned earlier, but this must sting a bit for the STW crew. Hope they paid in advance.

@soundninjauk probably not! I’m on holiday today! And it’s not bike stuff – it’s German real estate, banking rules, company restructuring and sales. For me it would be like taking on a whole research and learning project, and the chances of me then turning that into something accurate and non lawsuit inducing enough to publish…

You could start with the FT: https://www.ft.com/stream/26102ab4-b139-45e4-b413-7b3bc7a4ee5f

so are they still trading or what

Yes. They’re in (self administered however that works?!) administration so they can try to trade out of the hole in theory

Ronan Dunne now lists himself as “Factory rider for” on Instagram, Nukeproof no longer mentioned

Gutted for him. Best ever(?) result one month, next month team goes pop.

Yes. They’re in (self administered however that works?!) administration so they can try to trade out of the hole in theory

Administration will still be handled by the appointed adminstrators AFAIK, it’s the going in thats self-done. You can be forced/compelled, or choose to go into administration.

We should be clear though, once a company enters administration all bets are off for buying stuff until the administrator says so. It’s entirely legal for them to take your money and not supply the goods in the interim period, or rather its entirely legal to do so if you they did otherwise intend to ship the goods at the time of taking the order (otherwise thats just good old fraud). Only once the administrator decides its in the best interest of the creditors to the business to continue trading (and declares as such) can you get any level of guarantee your order will be serviced. If you order something and it turns out that the administrator decides the following day not to continue trading and your order hasn’t yet shipped, into the unsecured debtors list you go.

No misconduct, but it’s common to change the holding companies name to something different to disassociate yourselves from the indebted business. Common sense really.

Agreed and it’s also common to free up the name as a condition of the sale (in this case the business name was sold as disclosed in the SIP16 statement appended to the Proposals at Companies House) as you cannot have two companies with the same name at the same time registered at Companies House. 

That particular format is particularly common for insolvency transactions because it’s non contentious, consistent across a large part of the industry and unlikely to be blocked at Companies House on a change of name registration. 

[Company number] Limited is another.  

Important to highlight that creditors (i.e. those who are owed money and have an economic interest in the outcome rather than “academic”) will have been informed of this during the administration. There is no “hiding” going on.  There are specific rules for insolvency about disclosing former names in certain documents.  

Search for Evans Cycles on Companies House and it comes up with previous name and in administration in the first 10 company results.  

I was not saying it was wrong to change name, just pointing out that it had happened and thus it was less easy for people who don’t know to find the publicly available information to inform themselves.

there’s alot of people saying things like “it’s a sound business” with literally nothing to back it up. I just base my opinions on the public facts. Don’t believe the marketing hype. As buffet says Only when the tide goes out do you learn who has been swimming naked

unfortunately accounts are always out of date by 12-24 months on reality.

Neil SuperstarComponents

benpinnick

Gutted for him. Best ever(?) result one month, next month team goes pop.

Yeah, I guess the good thing is that result hopefully wins him a new sponsor quickly

Administration will still be handled by the appointed adminstrators AFAIK, it’s the going in thats self-done. You can be forced/compelled, or choose to go into administration.

It’s a long long way from my area of expertise but AFAIK the current directors do the administration, they’re to some extent protected from creditors but unlike [not self] administration the company is still run by the same people, not an insolvency practitioner, at least until such point as things get worse.

I don’t think it’s the same as voluntary administration but, my bit of googling only turns up details from Germany. I wonder if it’s [edit for clarity: just] Signa sports rather than wiggle crc that have gone into self administration? [and somehow wiggle crc are not in administration]

I guess that nobody is getting their free shoes.

I placed an order yesterday and got postage confirmation this morning so it doesn’t look like it’s quite at the “take your money and run” stage yet *cough*.

I’d not have bothered but a part I need came down to a price I could afford. Glad I didn’t also order some kneepads as they’re an almost certain “try on and return” item, but operations seem to be normal for now.

I wanted one of them vitus ebikes but I’m now holding off ordering trying to understand if they are likely to sell-off cheaper on Sports Direct in a few months 🙂

Yeah, I guess the good thing is that result hopefully wins him a new sponsor quickly

Hopefully, but next year is looking more and more like a game of musical chairs where all the chairs except one get taken away when the music stops.

I wonder if it’s [edit: just] Signa sports rather than wiggle crc that have gone into self administration?

Companies House is still showing Wiggle as an active company. I know that this is all only a day old, but I’d have thought that this would have needed to be up to date.

It’s a long long way from my area of expertise but AFAIK the current directors do the administration, they’re to some extent protected from creditors but unlike [not self] administration the company is still run by the same people, not an insolvency practitioner, at least until such point as things get worse.

During a regular administration the administrators are only around for a few weeks AFAIK if the company is looking to restructure its way out. Once a plan is drawn up and agreed, the regular directors are the ones to see it through. Sounds like the german version is similar, just a bit more hands off.

so are they still trading or what.

Yeah, these things have a habit of just slowly grinding along, until either one of two things happen.

1. They grind their way out of the hole they’ve created, move some deckchairs, and pretty much just rumble on,

or

2. it all comes crashing down around their ears very rapidly in a sudden rush

Well this sucks. Have a mis-sized Vitus I need to return, paid for with PayPal. 

What’s the best course of action?

I guess there are other* share holders in wiggle crc for exactly this purpose, rather than it being wholly owned by Signa?
So they’re protected to some extent from the legal status of signa if not from the fall out of it, so I’m theory wiggle crc could be a going concern despite SSU going pop.

*who I’d assume are other Signa shareholders but holding just enough shares either privately or through another holding company to keep their bank accounts away from any potential damage they cause.

Well this sucks. Have a mis-sized Vitus I need to return, paid for with PayPal.

What’s the best course of action?

Facebook marketplace? No that’s never the best course of action, even if it’s the only course of action.

@stwhannah yeah fair enough! Thanks for the starting point, I shall Do My Own Research.

I shall Do My Own Research.

Do come back and tell us what exciting things you have learned.  Especially if most of your research is done via youtube videos:)

Do come back and tell us what exciting things you have learned. Especially if most of your research is done via youtube videos:)

I’ve been at it 8 minutes and what I’ve gathered so far is that somehow it’s all the fault of covid vaccines.