Osella
Senior Retro Guru
Re:
There sounds like a lot of (deliberate?) misinformation and pot-stirring here from Mavic, and a LOT of misunderstanding and/or blind ignorance from websites on the while thing.
Irrespective of the harm that a lack of investment has undoubtedly caused; the ownership is pretty normal - not surreptitious, and is, in fact, industry standard.
Firstly Amer Sports didn't own Mavic, it was owned by a subsidiary of the group that Amer was also part of (so, ownership picture 'unclear' there? Apparently not..)
The new 'owners' Regent, are an LP (that's also known as a Private Equity company, or can be an Investment Fund).
Standard practice for these is to establish a subsidiary for each investment/batch of investments underneath; and commonly a separate subsidiary for each company to be bought/invested into. These are 99% of the time set up as Delaware LP's (Limited Partnership); as the US state of Delaware has no corporation taxes and an easy & cheap registry. These are usually set up as off-the-shelf shell entities, then re-named when the target investment is made.
In this case there is a Delaware LP (M Sports, geddit?) which directly owns the shares of Mavic Sa.s. The General Partner (manager) of this entity would normally be the PE company/Fund - or more commonly a specific management entity set up for turning it around, normally under the control of an expert in the industry/field of the company (in this case, cycling). It doesn't seem that this step (expert management), has yet happened.
Limited Partners also invest; they pony up cash and take profit, the largest Limited Partner will normally be the PE firm/investment fund.
The reason being that, in a turnaround, corporate filing, reporting, taxes etc are unwelcome; so Delaware is used (it's also VERY cheap to set up new off-the-shelf LPs and companies) as it has no operating taxes or costs, and an easy sale process (once the turnaround is complete, the Delaware co can be sold off wholesale, without disturbing the underlying business) - at least, that's the theory...
This company (Regent) has done it with SupaClips, La Senza, owns Diamondback, etc; successes and failures, but that's business, not (necessarily) something 'dodgy' as a 'representative' from Mavic may say.
Said spokesperson is "a representative of the employees committee", which means in plain speak, a union rep... So of course it is in his nature to denigrate the ownership structure and call it into question, as it is a Private Equity/Capital structure - which he may not grasp; or does grasp and simply seeks to denounce on the basis that it's pretty much his job to rage against capitalism.
Bad for jobs, for manufacturing, for Mavic? Yes. Bad investment, poor planning? Yep.
Unlawful, unintelligable, questionable? Not really.
There sounds like a lot of (deliberate?) misinformation and pot-stirring here from Mavic, and a LOT of misunderstanding and/or blind ignorance from websites on the while thing.
Irrespective of the harm that a lack of investment has undoubtedly caused; the ownership is pretty normal - not surreptitious, and is, in fact, industry standard.
Firstly Amer Sports didn't own Mavic, it was owned by a subsidiary of the group that Amer was also part of (so, ownership picture 'unclear' there? Apparently not..)
The new 'owners' Regent, are an LP (that's also known as a Private Equity company, or can be an Investment Fund).
Standard practice for these is to establish a subsidiary for each investment/batch of investments underneath; and commonly a separate subsidiary for each company to be bought/invested into. These are 99% of the time set up as Delaware LP's (Limited Partnership); as the US state of Delaware has no corporation taxes and an easy & cheap registry. These are usually set up as off-the-shelf shell entities, then re-named when the target investment is made.
In this case there is a Delaware LP (M Sports, geddit?) which directly owns the shares of Mavic Sa.s. The General Partner (manager) of this entity would normally be the PE company/Fund - or more commonly a specific management entity set up for turning it around, normally under the control of an expert in the industry/field of the company (in this case, cycling). It doesn't seem that this step (expert management), has yet happened.
Limited Partners also invest; they pony up cash and take profit, the largest Limited Partner will normally be the PE firm/investment fund.
The reason being that, in a turnaround, corporate filing, reporting, taxes etc are unwelcome; so Delaware is used (it's also VERY cheap to set up new off-the-shelf LPs and companies) as it has no operating taxes or costs, and an easy sale process (once the turnaround is complete, the Delaware co can be sold off wholesale, without disturbing the underlying business) - at least, that's the theory...
This company (Regent) has done it with SupaClips, La Senza, owns Diamondback, etc; successes and failures, but that's business, not (necessarily) something 'dodgy' as a 'representative' from Mavic may say.
Said spokesperson is "a representative of the employees committee", which means in plain speak, a union rep... So of course it is in his nature to denigrate the ownership structure and call it into question, as it is a Private Equity/Capital structure - which he may not grasp; or does grasp and simply seeks to denounce on the basis that it's pretty much his job to rage against capitalism.
Bad for jobs, for manufacturing, for Mavic? Yes. Bad investment, poor planning? Yep.
Unlawful, unintelligable, questionable? Not really.
