Km303

@thekaiser: Kent outdoors was founded around 50 years ago but was purchased (in a private deal) at the end of 2020 by seawall capital.

So the way I read this (after working in finance industry): Kona is not profitable for Kent Kent’s water sports business is profitable, but needs assets to grow. Eclipse (with lots of big finance backing) has loaned kent $100mm to grow. Part off that loan involves taking on a new executive (Belitsky) They also announced a new cfo: Rob Otto My takeaway. Kent wants to grow its most profitable business line but needs assets to do it, eclipse lends them money and a manager for their money (Belitsky). Kent also wants to sell their least profitable business (Kona bikes) after making a terrible decision to buy Kona bikes in 2022. Missing from all these announcements is the true owner of Kona bikes: seawall capital (everything is owned by private equity) so seawall bought Kona in 2022 because they thought the high would go on forever, it didn’t, so they tried to pivot Kona to a dtc bike company, but effed that up by pissing off their dealers and trying to make up for it by selling bikes during the worst time ever to sell bikes. Cut to 2024, seawall is trying to cut their losses, they hire Rob Otto to make Kona look as profitable as possible (he is a cfo, not an operations officer). Rob is going to hide as much debt/losses as he can, cut costs dramatically and try and present Kona bikes as a sellable asset. They will sell Kona, and its future depends a lot on what financial decisions Rob Otto makes over the next 6-12 months. Kona as a name is a good brand, but their revs/ebitda are probably crap the past few years. Honestly Kona bikes probably isn’t worth more than a few million (realistically, depending on tooling/inventory/debt, I’d guess around $5-10mm) dollars these days, they’ll find a buyer.

Should be interesting as the company is an investment firm in The textile industry…not bikes. Granted it seems like there is an outdoor lean to their textiles, and bikes are also about supply chains and cost management, so hopefully this guy gets Scott in better financial footing. But make no mistake, he’s there to guarantee that loan payment gets made in 9 months. Given the current state of the outdoor market, expect some serious cuts to be announced soon.

This. i actually like that they are thinking about bikes a bit differently with their softtail, but explicitly not listening to mechanics, and any riders who do their own maintenance seems a bit dumb.

Just make sure you are able to return to the French mainland.

@mior: honestly, I’d buy them. Hell I’d put Kirkland tires on my car if they sold them.

Its rebirth is forthcoming: Costco has announced it will now sponsor the newly defunct intense racing team. The team name will now be changed to Kirkland racing team. You can stop by their booth for rotisserie chicken, hot dogs and a dcisounted membership offer. Make sure you check out the warehouse for a six pack of the new Intense 951 bikes and a 90” (230cm) tv.

They are popular as rental bikes at ski mountains that double as bike mountains in the summer. I’m guessing because of some existing relationship with rossignol. Rode one at Breckenridge two summers ago, honesty not bad bikes, sort of meh, but solid performers where the bikes don’t really hold you back. I enjoyed it.

@mtnjamscott: I think it probably would, help. Draftkings could probably run it better than the uci.

I feel like pinkbike (and by extension manufacturers) played a small role in the edr demise by killing the fantasy contest. There were thousands (millions?) of participants and I know for me, it generated some real interest in looking for results/watching races when it was around. For the price of a new bike/random gear, manufacturers could have grown their audience by more than so many other marketing strategies. Taking out ads in print magazines? Paying to have pinkbike run a banner ad? To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I remember the last time I really saw a decent marketing campaign from a mountain bike company.