Austrian maker of motorcycles and other thrilling machines with wheels, KTM, is not in great shape at the moment. Its parent company, Pierer Mobility, which also owns Husqvarna’s motorcycle business, agreed to court-supervised restructuring to avoid bankruptcy just last week. Creditors are due to vote on the restructuring plan on Tuesday; if they don’t approve it, Pierer will find itself back at square one, where a familiar name may be waiting in the wings to scoop up the company and its brands.
Yes, Austrian outlet oe24 reports that name is BMW Motorrad, which evidently has the endorsement of Pierer’s insolvency administrator. BMW, for its part, dismissed the claim as “purely speculation” to RideApart earlier today. But the part of BMW’s supposed plan that’s garnered the most attention is the rumor that it would close KTM’s headquarters in Mattighofen, Upper Austria, and relocate R&D to Germany while sending all manufacturing to India. KTM already builds some models in India as well as China, but the vast majority of its products are made in Austria.
The article presents this news with some concern, to put it mildly. Perhaps it’s just Google Translate engaging in some editorializing of its own, but the oe24 story attributes everything to a nameless “insider” and includes such panicked statements as “The bakery in Mattighofen as well as the countless suppliers in Austria will come away empty-handed” if the deal goes through, and that “If the 4,500 jobs at KTM in Austria are lost, Mattighofen will become an industrial ruin.”
Austria-based Oberbank—presumably one of Pierer’s creditors—would prefer a BMW acquisition, the way oe24 tells it. Alternatively, existing management could remain in place buoyed by new financial backing, allowing KTM to continue more or less as we know it today once the restructuring plan is approved. Anything can happen, and we won’t know KTM’s fate until tomorrow.
That said, it’s hard to imagine BMW would immediately pack up Mattighofen and lay off everybody, considering the foothold KTM has at home. I don’t know anything beyond what’s been reported here, but the quotes in the oe24 article read so alarmed that I wouldn’t at all be surprised if they were leaked to the press by someone who really doesn’t want the brand to become a BMW subsidiary.
What’s ironic about all of this is that such a deal would place Husqvarna in BMW’s control, as it had been from 2007 until 2013, when Pierer acquired it. Pierer also became MV Agusta’s majority shareholder almost a year ago, but then fully relinquished control of the Italian brand to its other primary investor, the Sardarov family, late last month. It’s been a messy few months for KTM indeed, one we’re sure everyone involved would prefer to move on from—including the employees at the company bakery.
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