Eddy Merckx Cycles reports multi-million euro loss in 2016
Eddy Merckx Cycles increased its sales but reported a loss of income, attributing it to less people buying bikes.
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Eddy Merckx Cycles has doubled its sales in the past two years - but has reported a multi-million euro loss for 2016.
The bike company, which the legendary cyclist handed control over to Diepensteyn NV in 2014, sold close to €9m of bikes last year, continuing the trend set in 2015 of increasing the number of bikes it sells. However, it expected to sell even more.
Overall interest in the road race market diminished, affecting the company harder than they anticipated. They thus generated a loss of €5.7m.
>>> Eddy Merckx: the man behind the legend
Eddy Merckx Cycles is now running a deficit of more than €17m euros, which is largely due to the sponsorship of the Quick-Step Floors team that ceased in 2012.
Diepensteyn committed more than €27.7m last August, up from €14m, to strengthen the company's finances.
"The market for road race bikes dropped by 25 percent last year and a specialist in this category we were hit unexpectedly hard," Bart Van Muylder, chairman of the brand and CEO of Diepensteyn NV, said according to Bike-eu.com (opens in new tab).
"We were not able to compensate our decline in turnover in other bike categories as we are 100 percent dedicated to the road race market.
"Our turnover was stable, although we anticipated on a growth in sales. Still, we are proud we have doubled our sales over the past two years and still believe in the future of Eddy Merckx Cycles."
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Chris first started writing for Cycling Weekly in 2013 on work experience and has since become a regular name in the magazine and on the website. Reporting from races, long interviews with riders from the peloton and riding features drive his love of writing about all things two wheels.
Probably a bit too obsessed with mountains, he was previously found playing and guiding in the Canadian Rockies, and now mostly lives in the Val d’Aran in the Spanish Pyrenees where he’s a ski instructor in the winter and cycling guide in the summer. He almost certainly holds the record for the most number of interviews conducted from snowy mountains.
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