Owner of historic Raleigh bicycle brand starts insolvency proceedings

The bicycle company that owns the historic Raleigh brand has started insolvency proceedings after failing to find a buyer.

The Netherlands-based Accell Group said on Wednesday it had called in administrators after it failed to find a viable solution to continue its operations in their current form.

Raleigh was founded in 1887 and grew to be the biggest bike manufacturer in the world. At its height it was making 1m bicycles year at its factory in Nottingham and employed more than 8,000 people.

However, after classic models such as the Chopper, Grifter and Burner children’s bikes in the 1970s and 1980s, Raleigh lost market share and it stopped making bikes in England in 2002.

It was bought in 2012 for $100m (£74m)by Accell, which also owns the Lapierre and Ghost bicycle brands, as well as the Babboe cargo bike brand, among others, ending 125 years as a British-owned company. The fate of the Raleigh brand, which still retained offices in Nottinghamshire, will now be decided by administrators.

Accell previously described itself as the European market leader in e-bikes and its second largest in bicycle parts and accessories, with the vast majority of the group’s production moved to Hungary where costs were 30% below those of its previous Dutch factories. However, European bike and parts makers have come under relentless pressure from Chinese rivals in recent decades, leading to fewer and fewer survivors.

Accell was bought in 2022 in a €1.4bn (£1.2bn) buyout by the US private equity firm KKR, which hoped to capitalise on the renewed interest in cycling in cities around the world. Cities have built cycle lanes to encourage exercise and to cut congestion and pollution, while electric bikes have opened up cycling to people with different physical abilities.

The KKR purchase came at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when demand for bikes soared from people locked down in their local areas. However, the industry was unable to adjust quickly enough, increasing output massively, only to find it had missed the wave. That left manufacturers with lots of unsold stock that needed to be off-loaded at a discount.

KKR hoped to cut costs and share operations between several different brands. In February, it was forced to hand over the business to creditors, a group of undisclosed European banks and investors. The new owners tried to agree a takeover with Dutech Holdings through Singapore-based industrial group’s subsidiary Tri Star Group, but those talks came to nothing.

Jonas Nilsson, the chief executive of Accell, said: “This is a deeply sad and frustrating situation given all the hard work and everything we have achieved, with the support of shareholders and lenders, to restructure Accell’s operations and finances.”

“It is an especially difficult moment for our employees, creditors, customers, suppliers, and partners. Every realistic option for the future of the business has been tirelessly explored, and none have resulted in a solution to continue the group in its current form.”

“Our immediate focus is to support an orderly process, provide clarity wherever possible, and work with the relevant court-appointed administrators to preserve viable activities and employment where circumstances allow.”