Bradley Wiggins liquidates businesses with debts of over £1m

Two of Bradley Wiggins’s companies are being wound up with debts in excess of £1m and look set to leave creditors hundreds of thousands of pounds out of pocket.

Wiggins Rights Limited, the company used to “exploit Bradley Wiggins’s name and image rights”, has entered liquidation with debts in excess of £650,000 while a related company New Team Cycling Limited, which was used to run the now defunct Team Wiggins and lists Bradley Wiggins as a director, is also being liquidated with debts of £587,008.

Creditors to the companies, according to the statements of affairs filed at Companies House, include 101 Ride Limited, the parent company of the company that used to run Team Wiggins; prominent cycling agent and management company Trinity, which has rafts of top name riders on its books; bike brand Pinarello and Vitus Pro Cycling rider Dan Tullett. At least some of the creditors look set to be left out of pocket.

Wiggins Rights Limited is controlled by Bradley Wiggins with his wife Cath, whom he split from earlier this year, and his mother owning a one per cent share each.

That company has debts of £654,657 and the statement of affairs, signed by Cath, said it expects to get back only £600,695 from a directors loan of £760,373, issued years earlier. The statement of affairs said it expected the creditors to the company to be left £53,962 out of pocket as the recovery of other book debts was “uncertain”. 

The statement of affairs of the company shows that 101 Ride Limited, which is a company controlled by Wiggins Rights Limited and in turn owns New Team Cycling limited, which was used to run the now-defunct Team Wiggins, is one of the biggest creditors and is owed £238,000. Wiggins Rights Limited also owes £29,000 directly to New Team Cycling.

The biggest creditor to Wiggins Rights Limited is HM Revenue and Customs, which is owed £272,360.

The rest of the company’s debts are to accountancy firms and lawyers and total just over £115,000.

New Team Cycling Limited, which lists Cath and Bradley Wiggins as its directors, owes its creditors a total of £587,008 and, according to the statement of affairs, they look set to get nothing.

The single biggest creditor is its parent 101 Ride Limited, which is owed £366,000.

It also owes HM Revenue and Customs £57,344 and Trinity Sports Management £81,621. Trinity is one of the biggest management companies in cycling and its clients include Ian Stannard, Nicolas Roche, and Simon Yates among others. It also oversaw the running of Team Wiggins during its lifetime. 

New Team Cycling Limited also owes £16,710.63 to bike brand Pinarello. The Italian marquee supplied the bikes to Team Wiggins throughout its lifetime from 2015 to 2019, though it’s not clear if that is what the debt relates to.

Among the other creditors is Vitus Pro Cycling rider Dan Tullett, who rode for Team Wiggins in 2019, who is owed £583 and Yellow Jersey Insurance, which is owed £7,237.14.

A spokesperson for Bradley Wiggins said the closure of both businesses was “regretful” but that Wiggins’s involvement “was not on a day to day”. 

He added: “Experienced professionals were trusted to run both the financial and operational elements of the businesses. It must also be made clear that an investigation into lost assets is still underway. For clarity this in no way effects Bradley’s personal solvency.”

Andrew McQuaid, director of Trinity, said he was “proud of Team Wiggins’s successes over the years”. He added: “If there is an investigation into missing assets that’s the first I’ve heard of it, no one has ever spoken to me about that.”

Dan Tullett was unavailable for comment.

In July this year the High Court in London dismissed a bankruptcy petition brought against Wiggins by HMRC with the consent of the tax man. A report in the Daily Mail at the time said his lawyers and HMRC had met to work out a solution to his financial difficulties.