Hello Vital MTB Visitor,
We’re conducting a survey and would appreciate your input. Your answers will help Vital and the MTB industry better understand what riders like you want. Survey results will be used to recognize top brands. Make your voice heard!
Five lucky people will be selected at random to win a Vital MTB t-shirt.
Thanks in advance,
The Vital MTB Crew
Young Talent? Looks more like the HR mantra for rehiring a full staff of naive employees and racers to flog the product again. Hopefully sacked employees get the call up to get their jobs back, but if it were me I'd walk...
Can someone explain how they went thru administration and were able to buy back both physical and intellectual property and continue to operate? I don’t see how a couple auctions would pay their debts. Marcus has had a stake the entire time. Seems pretty wild to me.
hair cut for the debitors
Oh boy. It will be interesting to see how this goes.
I did some digging and I obviously don't speak German nor am I well versed in German bankruptcy proceedings but what appears to have happened is the old YT Industries (HRB 8353) is in an insolvency proceedings with debts parked there and the new YT (12277) is controlled by Flossman and is taking over the brand and operations.
This most certainly means the creditors take a (big) haircut, equity (of prior company) is completely wiped (private equity marks the company to 0) and the "new" company is buying assets out of the insolvency estate. What I have no idea about is the price, it could be a sweetheart deal, it could be close to "fair market". No idea.
Those who want to dig more, the case number is IN 237/25 and it got underway in late September with creditors being asked to file claims by 7-Nov, which is why I think we have this resolution, now. I could be reading this wrong, but it looks like a creditors' meeting and examination meeting is scheduled for 8-Dec to conclude valuation/plan with the old (insolvent) company. Put differently, the old YT still remains active with a court-supervised process where an insolvency plan / asset sale structure concludes?
Looking at the timeline on the new company side of things, the shell existed at least as far back as Jul with a shareholder agreement being adopted and being registed. On 28-Oct the company changed its name from Mondstein 660 to YOUNG TALENT INDUSTRIES and moved its location to the same site as the old YT. Markus is sole managing director. You guys read into that as you will, but there is certainly some head scratching to be had with this timeline.
What next? Well, Markus has an uphill battle to wage with respect to gaining the market's trust back. Making vendors, athletes, distributors, employees and customers whole ought to be first order of business. Beyond that, while he's shown "talent" to grow a business, he has not shown the ability to reliably turn a profit that is in line with industry expectations (net margin/ebitda margin at reasonable levels). Whats worse for him, we're no longer in a ZIRP era and unless he works some serious magic with respect to supply chain, he's got a business that is an order of magnitude more complex in that he has to manage his own inventory/assembly, a much taller order than merely taking complete bikes and sending them to customers.
I did reach out to him on LinkedIn to see if he'd talk to me. I probably shouldn't hold my breath eh?
So Markus (CEO of new company) was busy getting the new YT set up in July while Markus (CEO of old company) was busy running a 50% off online flash sale just prior to declaring old YT insolvent in mid-July. Busy man that Markus.
The press release containing two pictures of the guy, one of which is in front of a "WE ARE YT" sign is priceless.
Are both pictures of new company CEO Markus? Or maybe one is old company CEO Markus? It's really hard to tell.
What is wild to me, when I head to the other site the top comment is quick to scapegoat PE as the problem. While it very well may have been part of the issue, we can all agree it was not all of the issue.
Looks like the PR tour is off with a bang...
Guess they hired the Ari marketing team for a quick campaign
Thank you.
"Can we welcome you as a regular reader and commenter in our forum from now on?
I would really like to do that and I will try it too. However, the last few weeks have shown how little time is up to date. Nevertheless, the direct exchange is extremely important to me, and whenever possible, I will participate.
Thank you for the interview, Markus!"
Why does it read like a teenage fan is getting an opportunity to interview their favorite celebrity? It gives me 'state-sponsored media' vibes, which is always a concern coming from Germany! (jk)
that’s just mtb-news.de
Speaking from experience, YT has a tall order ahead of them to ensure smooth continuity of operations with suppliers. Suppliers do not care about the legal differences between "YT" and "Young Talent". Additionally Marcus being the face of the old company and now the new one will further narrow the issue. There are only two paths forward: pay the suppliers in full or walk away from them and work with new suppliers. Option 2 isn't ideal given the size of the industry nor the lead times associated with moving your supply chain.
YT stuff is fascinating. In team rumors, reports of Dylan Stark and Erik Fedko announcing they re-signed with the brand. I also put this in that thread, but pertinent here - Saudis buying WBD? (These social accounts are huge, but anyone know if they're credible?) If this goes through...oh boy.
First Electronic Arts now WBD?
HASH TAG MARKETING MENTOR. HASH TAG BUSINESS BULLS
more like business bullshit lol
At this point I hope they just buy up more and more and reveal how fragile (and / or spineless) the economy is and how much we are willing to sell our souls for the almighty dollar. Although at this point I don't think you could do anything to get the average citizen to care. (gestures vaguely at the state of things)
I see how boycotts don't work. I see how people line up to buy limited edition trinkets (tiny trader joes bags??). And I see how humans can relativize anything and 'keep calm and carry on'
What colour will Markus' next Porsche be I wonder.
What a shitshow
Love the smell of astroturf in the morning 😅
Your petrochemical dollars at work.
BREAKING NEWS!!! Drunk Teenager Promises Mom And Dad That Third Totaled Car Will Be His Last
I saw someone mention this already, but it really seems like the timing of this was designed to allow YT and YT USA to completely crumble, in order to be able to restart the company with virtually 0 staff while having all the branding and connections.
By and large, this is a pretty accurate assessment. Unfortunately I have way too much work to do right now (- ya boy got hired) to do the promised legal deep dive into this.
Genuinely curious as to where things will go from here. A couple of months ago I would have doubted that anyone would be willing to lend him the money to get YT back on its feet, so initially the fact that he was able to convince the banks sounds rather positive. But of course Flossmann will have to fight an uphill battle to regain trust and credibility with OEMs, components suppliers and last but not least customers. His and his companies reputation has taken a serious hit and for that reason I'm not entirely sure it was a wise decision to continue the YT brand (though under the ownership of what is now a completely seperate legal entity to the previous company). I imagine he might have a hard time finding an OEM that lets him order stuff on his account without requiring a good chunk of the payment in advance.
I'm also rather surprised by the decision of him personally taking on the position of CEO once more. Because let's not kid ourselves; as Jeff and others have pointed out, the management of "old YT" made some questionable decisions long before any PE got involved. Judging from the interview with MTB-news.de, Flossmann is eating humble pie right now, but let's all wait and see if this new attitude can last.
Hired by YT? 😜
Manufacturing news from Starling today: https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/starling-cycles-evolves-manufacturing-and-cuts-lead-times.
Saudi is in the running, but the deal is hardly "done". According to other sources, Paramount, Comcast and Netflix also in the running, and it also appears this will likely get tied up in antitrust unless the PIF wins the bidding war.
People are largely unaware, but Saudi and Qatar have invested a ton of money in US based companies, both directly and through private funds. This is all part of their plan to diversify away from fossil fuels, alone and grow the national AUM to $1T+. I find it a touch interesting how people get so spun up about all things human rights but this usually flies under the radar.
In any case, if they were to buy WBD I actually wouldn't expect things to go kaput operationally. They generally stay completely hands off, and if anything find a way to inject capital into a business to help with the best possible (business) outcome.
Can there be a YT thread similar to the old Ridemonkey Evil Revolt Tuning Thread? What a time... Seems like a lot of the gifs / memes are no longer visible, sad. Lots of laughs reading through that back then.
Jimmy Astleford (@jimi_sendricks), former US Marketing Director for YT USA and an all around great guy, is going scorched earth in the comments of Markus's "AMA" video on the YT Industries instagram post.
Give us the highlights man! I'm not going to instagram...
Jimmy:
"Why was a new entity created on July 11, when the insolvency didn’t happen till after? Why wasn’t it done in your name? Asking on behalf of honest hard working people."
"I was a US employee for the last 3 years, as were many on here asking valid questions. The level of transparency around this topic over the last 6 months from global has been slim to none, outside of preaching “Business as usual” for us here in the states. I went to rampage to support YT’s global athletes, only to come home to the news of us being forced to close doors, eliminating over 30 employee and athletes positions here in California and bentonville. If this post is in effort to provide transparency, I expect our questions to be answered. I would like to know how long this plan has been in motion, cause public records show a new entity was created before the shit hit that fan, and that entity is called Young talent industries. It’s not hard to do a little research, but I would like to hear it from the horses mouth."
"I don’t think there was any aim to keep the suffering to a low. You can ask any of the staff in EU, UK, and USA. We all felt the pain, and didn’t know it was coming."
James Ackey:
"Why did North America have to get shut down in the process? Deal on the table that would have been mutually beneficial while keeping customers supported and employees working. Employees in NA worked hard days, long overtime hours with no raises for many years in hopes of a brighter future just to get dumped. Asking on behalf of the people who built the community with support and effort"
BJ Shirey:
"Before celebrating anything, explain why the US crew was told to lie that we were “good” and then left jobless not once but TWICE because YOU failed to reach a beneficial agreement for both sides. A comeback means nothing when it’s built on sacrificing the people who held the brand together."
Someone else:
Will the staff who are still owed their wages get paid? They worked really hard for you and now they’re completely abandoned and ignored. If you have all this time to make these videos at least answer their emails… geeez. Kind of a kick in the teeth to boast and brag about the new company when so many staff who built yt have been ripped off.
Too much dirt.
YT went in dry on all the athletes racing for the MOB, UK and US operations, and all the customers who paid for bikes and never got them. They can never make all that right.
Link to the IG story to ask questions... I'm surprised some of the questions on the IG post haven't been deleted by YT..
https://www.instagram.com/stories/yt_industries/3768711338068030770?utm…
Allegedly they have settled up with most of the customers.. There was a guy on PB talking about people who got their bike and then the refund a few days later..
Post a reply to: The Bikeconomics (Mega)Thread