After weeks of searching, banks and creditors have found a buyer for Vanmoof found the insolvent bike start-up
. Lavoie, a supplier of electric scooters and a subsidiary of Formula 1 supplier McLaren Applied, announced the acquisition on Thursday. The company did not name a purchase price. Formerly part of the McLaren Group, McLaren Applied was sold to financial investor Greybull Capital in 2021.
McLaren Applied Board Chairman Nick Fry put the total investment, including fresh money to stabilize and expand the business, at “several tens of millions of pounds in the short term”. Fry himself is actually a “Car Guy”. He started his career at Ford, developed the luxury model DB7 at Aston Martin and was later CEO of the Formula 1 racing team Mercedes-AMG-Petronas and Brawn GP. He has only been Chairman of McLaren Applied and its subsidiary Lavoie since 2021.
With the Vanmoof brand, he now wants to take the next step. “This is a great opportunity for us because VanMoof is a company with a great product,” said Fry. “But it won’t be a cakewalk because this company has put itself in a difficult financial position.”
The Dutch e-bike manufacturer was considered the best-financed e-bike start-up in the world. In total, the brothers Taco (45) and Ties Carlier (44) had collected around 200 million euros in investor funds. Their hip electric models soon rolled through the metropolises of the world – but the founders took over. Due to rapid expansion, service problems and quality and warranty problems, they burned the capital. According to the preliminary 2021 annual report, Vanmoof made a loss of around 80 million euros, and it should have been a similar amount in 2022. Emergency loans, downsizing and sales bans were also possible not prevent bankruptcy in July. How now from the documents of the insolvency administrator At the time of the bankruptcy, Vanmoof had accumulated debts of around 144 million euros to suppliers, tax authorities and financiers.
Lavoie is familiar with the high-price segment
In the end it was no longer the brothers but the banks who called the shots in the company. Several potential buyers dropped out. Now the British from Lavoie want to try it, which sells high-priced electric scooters for around 1800 pounds.
Operationally, Lavoie is managed by Co-CEOs Eliott Wertheimer and Albert Nassar. They are convinced that Lavoie and Vanmoof would go well together in terms of technology and design. It is Lavoie’s goal to ensure that Vanmoof’s approximately 190,000 customers worldwide “stay on the road”. At the same time, it is important to stabilize the e-bike manufacturer in the short term.
Farewell to own shops, significant job cuts planned
Chairman Fry said he would keep the Vanmoof brand name going forward. Possibly even your own brand could be included. Otherwise, the Vanmoof concept is to be radically changed: instead of their own shops, the new owners want to work with external partners for sales and service. They want to fix one of Vanmoof’s core problems, which had led to high customer dissatisfaction and high costs. The company already has new models in the pipeline without the previous quality issues, says Fry. They now want to put it on the market.
According to the Dutch newspaper “Het Financieele Dagblad”, the restart will also involve significant job cuts. It is said that around 50 to 60 of the approximately 700 employees will continue to be employed.
And the two founders Taco and Ties Carlier no longer have a place in the management of the company. They could perhaps serve in an advisory role, but that’s undecided, Fry said.
For a few weeks now, Vanmoof has been run by the two trustees Jan Padberg and Robin de Wit, who were appointed by a Dutch court. From September 4th, the trustees want to inform Vanmoof customers about how the service operation for Vanmoof bikes will be organized in the future.