General Cycling Discussion - Who owns who in the bike business?

I'm becoming intrigued by the whole question of who actually owns what bike company, and why the businesses try to keep it not obvious. We know about Schwinn and other failing companies being bought out by the "We ship to the discount-marts" company, but Jamis is owned by a company that makes kid's toy bikes according to LBS. How about some of the other companies? How many are independent? Who owns what?

Pacific owns Schwinn and GT
Trek owns Fisher and Klein
Marita owns Specialized

Originally posted by WorldIRC
Pacific owns Schwinn and GT
Trek owns Fisher and Klein
Marita owns Specialized

Trek owns Lemond, also

Originally posted by WorldIRC
Pacific owns Schwinn and GT

Pacific? Gah, there's a name that brings back memories....of when I was a Toys R Us clerk. Toy shop bikes at bike shop prices......

Hey, who owns Dynacraft, Roadmaster and Rand? :D

I heard that Huffy bought out Gerry baby products back then (or was it the other way around?)

In Canada, Norco distributes Haro.

Originally posted by WorldIRC
Pacific owns Schwinn and GT
Trek owns Fisher and Klein
Marita owns Specialized

Last I heard, Merida was a major investor, but not the majority owner, of Specialized.

RichC

I've heard Trek was a Schwinn break off "back in the day." Schwinn made small companies to try new technology so if it didn't work or they got sued, they would just abandon the company instead of it taking away from the mother company. I think Trek was one of those companies. Also, I've heard giant makes frames for 7 other companies. This info is from my LBS owner, but I don't know for sure.

-Middi-zon

Originally posted by Middi-zon
I've heard Trek was a Schwinn break off "back in the day." Schwinn made small companies to try new technology so if it didn't work or they got sued, they would just abandon the company instead of it taking away from the mother company. I think Trek was one of those companies. Also, I've heard giant makes frames for 7 other companies. This info is from my LBS owner, but I don't know for sure.

-Middi-zon

I read the book No Hands: the Rise and Fall of Schwinn, and Trek was only mentioned as a competitor. The book didn't say anything about Schwinn having 'experimental' branches at all. What did happen, though, is that the Chinese company who began making Schwinn's offshore products had a spat with them and broke off to become Giant.

Originally posted by Jean Beetham Smith
Jamis is owned by a company that makes kid's toy bikes according to LBS.

I bet it wasn't a shop that actually carries Jamis.

RichC

So my LBS is just giving me BS, wouldn't be the first time, but they're great on maintenance.

-Middi-zon

Trek is a privately held company with $400M in annual gross sales and 7 overseas subsidiaries. Trek owns 3 other major US bicycle brands: Gary Fisher, LeMond, and Klein along with a small Swiss brand called Villiger. It also owns Bontrager design. 70% of the company is still owned by the Burke family. Dick Burke founded the company and his son John is the current president.
A little more history of Trek is here: http://www.vintage-trek.com/TREK_History1.pdf

Here are a few more....

- Huffy owns Huffy
- Pacific Bicycles owns: Schwinn, GT and Mongoose
- Pegasus Partners now owns Cannondale
- K2 acquired and renamed ProFlex
- Raleigh owns Diamondback and Univega
- American Bicycle Group owns: Litespeed, Merlin, Quintana Roo and Tomac

Now, what you'd also want to know is who actually makes whose frames and bicycles?

Three of the major on-line merchants are related.

Performance owns Bike Nashbar.

The group that funds Performance just acquired an interest in Supergo.

Yet all three are run independently, so far.

Huffy owns Airborne ;) Its true!

Yup those who ride Airborne are riding titanium Huffy's :D LOL

Huffy recently sold Airborne back to its founder, and Merida has a Minority stake in Specialized. Mike Sinyard ponied up a bunch of his own cash so they would not have control of the company.

Originally posted by Jean Beetham Smith
Who owns what?
I own it.

:D

Originally posted by stumpjumper
Huffy owns Airborne ;) Its true!

Not. Airborne was bought back from Huffy by its original owner and founder, Jamie Raddin.

Raddin has been the CEO throughout, and Huffy's ownership had no real effect on the business model of the company or the quality of its products. The Huffy deal, as I understand it, was a way to pump some capital into Airborne while giving Huffy ownership of Airborne's e-business, which was a big deal at the time of the purchase.

When the bottom fell out of e-commerce, Huffy apparently lost interest.

Airborne's design, assembly, and finishing operations at their Ohio plant, and their frame manufacturing in China, have been operated the same way before, during, and since the Huffy era.

RichC

Yeah I heard Airborne uses prison labor or somesuch in China? Rumor? Fact?

Originally posted by RareVos
Yeah I heard Airborne uses prison labor or somesuch in China? Rumor? Fact?

Of course it's a rumor. Sadly (and I know this from personal experience) quite a few bike shop owners seemed threatened enough by Airborne's business model (and their success) that they were willing to say anything to keep people from buying them.

Airborne has had to counter your specific rumor a number of times online by pointing out that the workers at the factory that produces thair frames are highly skilled and highly paid (relative to their own economy).

I don't plan to get into the politics of buying Chinese-made products; such a discussion would rightly be off-topic here.

It's interesting, however, that this "slave labor" accusation so infrequently arises concerning products that everybody buys. Look at your clothes, electronics, computer parts, tools, and a thousand other things to see how many are made in China. If "slave labor" is involved, isn't it a lot more likely it's being used to manufacture t-shirts and screwdrivers than precision-welded titanium bike frames?

A company would have to be insane to issue a lifetime warranty on a product made by unwilling workers.

RichC

I worked for a Trek dealer back in their early years; there never was any connection at all to Schwinn. There are a lot of false rumors about stuff like this; my favorite is the one a few years ago about Nike buying Specialized!

A vintage-era jail worker rumor: Bikes built in Italy by the Rizatto company (Atala, Girardengo, Ligie) were said to be built in the joint. When you think of it, what exquisite torture to make prisoners--Italians building bike frames and Yanks making license plates--build their respective cultures' symbols of freedom and mobility!

Jamis is a bike line that was created and is distributed by G. Jannou Co. They also have a line of parts and accesories they sell to shops. Similar to but not as big as KHS. Also although this does not apply to all bicycle brands, Kalloy, Kinesis, KHS, and Giant build alot of companies frames.

I see a parallel between bike and computer industry.

Better to own Shimano and have a part on every bike than make the bike.

Better to own Microsoft and have something on every computer than to make the computer.

thoughts?

Diamondback has a good fix on this; one company that appears to stay financially sound in the bike business is Shimano, no matter what befalls any bike manufacturer. At any given time, I can have bikes from $100 to $5k waiting for work in my shop and they'll all be Shimano equipped; now that's market dominance! Unlike Microsoft they support older product. 7 and 8 speed cassettes are still available as are hub parts, chainrings, etc., for past models of component. Another interesting business model on a much smaller scale is Ritchey--his idea was itself modeled on Cinelli, who could get away with making small numbers of very high-quality bikes by making or contracting for parts to sell to companies that make thousands of bikes instead of dozens;
when I started cycling every good bike on the road (almost) had Cinelli handlebars and stem, now dozens of new bike models are sold with Ritchey bars, stems, saddles, tape, tires, tubes, wheelsets, cranks--you get the idea.
Tom Ritchey owns his company.

If Microsoft made my bike I'd walk or drive. I can't imagine crashing twice a day just because the bike felt like it.

Originally posted by diamondback
If Microsoft made my bike I'd walk or drive. I can't imagine crashing twice a day just because the bike felt like it.

And you'd have to wear this:

http://marketplace.consumerreview.com/classifieds/upload/Road.32020.1.jpg

:eek:

Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of Microsoft but I rather like the colours on that jersey.

I believe that Merlin and Litespeed are both owned by the same parent company.

Raddin has been the CEO throughout, and Huffy's ownership had no real effect on the business model of the company or the quality of its products. The Huffy deal, as I understand it, was a way to pump some capital into Airborne while giving Huffy ownership of Airborne's e-business, which was a big deal at the time of the purchase.


I never said a word about weather this was a good thing or a bad thing, but the fact is, they did indeed own Airborne (although it's news to me that they no longer do so, and since Huffys press releases through 11/02 still list Airborne as a holding, it must have been recent. I looked and found http://www.airborne.net/eready/janette/store/dbj-1102.asp, but have no idea when it was published. Guessing 11/2/02?)

Its also an interesting coincidence that Airborne's headquarters andd Huffys lie within reasonable driving distance of each other ;)

Originally posted by stumpjumper

Its also an interesting coincidence that Airborne's headquarters andd Huffys lie within reasonable driving distance of each other ;)

But that's all it is. Huffy had no involvement in the creation of Airborne.

RichC

You must be an Airborne owner.

Relax, nothing was implied in either of my posts.

Bell owns Giro (not quite bikes but helmets)

Also I don't know if this is true but I heard that Merida also manufacters bike for Scott USA.

Masi, a once venerable Italian line, is owned/built by one of the U.S. based BMX bicycle manufacturers. Don't recall which (Haro?).

Most all inexpensive frames are made in China (both of them) today. They have done an amazing job of building bicycle plants to fabricate parts in steel. aluminum and graphite composites. They are also moving up-scale in their manufacturing and are producing some high-end models (Airborne and whom else?). And, they will be doing more in the future. Wonder how long it will be before folks like Serotta and Klein (Trek) move their high-end work to China?

In addition, both Shimano and Campy now produce many of their parts in Chinese plants. So it is not just the bicycle brand name frames that are made over there. It is getting to the point that one is not buying a bicycle by a bicycle manufacturing company but by a bicycle assembly or marketing company. The bicycle and parts are actually being made by the lowest bidder. Easton makes their graphite stuff in Mexico. Too sad.