What happens if KTM goes bust?

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GreyGhost said:
Yes, but if there is a common part that fails, all of them are dead. For instance the Hyosung 250 looked ok but all of the motors died. Buying a parts bike doesn't help when the parts you need are garbage on that bike too.
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OK, but that's a bike not worth owning to begin with.

What part of the motor? SXV motors blow up all the time, but the community is still going strong. I suspect the difference is SXV owners either value the bike enough to pay for someone to rebuild it for them, or take the time to learn how to do it themselves compared to Hyosung owners. And parts availability is probably just as scarce. You would hope most owners maintain their bikes well enough to avoid damaging the cranks, which are no longer available, yet some still do. But cranks are easily salvaged from motors with bad heads (again from owners who failed to maintain them properly). So you end up with people selling bad motors with either good bottom ends or top ends, and everyone is happy.
 
Brian P said:
Appears that this was a foundry (castings). With the KTM name on them, this is probably a wholly-owned subsidiary which is a sole-source supplier to the mother ship. Pierer Mobility Group is a tangled web of corporate entities.

My observation in the automotive world has been that the mother ship normally owns the parts of the tooling that come in actual contact with the parts being made ... the molds, the fixtures, etc. The intent is that if the supplier goes bankrupt, the mother ship can repossess those parts of the tooling (because they own it). But, integrating that tooling with the casting machinery, the furnaces, the robots, etc., and restarting production with the OEM-owned tooling in a different facility, is not a small job.
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That’s a tough grind. If you came to our shop and asked for tooling from a company that stiffed us, it might take a long time for us to locate the stuff… and you better have all the paperwork and court orders in place. Don’t forget to bring a cheque for tool storage, drayage, and maintenance we just performed in a last ditched effort to save your clapped out dies.
 
Relax said:
Lots of parts no longer available from April’s for my


You're thinking about it backwards. Every time someone gives up on their bike because of an $80 part, the rest of that bike becomes available to everyone else.
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For everyone else or for the one guy who buys five of them? Lol
 
Brian P said:
Appears that this was a foundry (castings). With the KTM name on them, this is probably a wholly-owned subsidiary which is a sole-source supplier to the mother ship. Pierer Mobility Group is a tangled web of corporate entities.

My observation in the automotive world has been that the mother ship normally owns the parts of the tooling that come in actual contact with the parts being made ... the molds, the fixtures, etc. The intent is that if the supplier goes bankrupt, the mother ship can repossess those parts of the tooling (because they own it). But, integrating that tooling with the casting machinery, the furnaces, the robots, etc., and restarting production with the OEM-owned tooling in a different facility, is not a small job.
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The even stranger thing is they just bought it a couple of months ago. I really would like to know why they kept spending even though they had to know they were in trouble. Same thing with the MV purchase is probably a complete loss. They didn't have to buy MV but pushed to do it just to go bankrupt.

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Mad Mike said:
That’s a tough grind. If you came to our shop and asked for tooling from a company that stiffed us, it might take a long time for us to locate the stuff
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A very, very long time. Years, maybe.
Mad Mike said:
… and you better have all the paperwork and court orders in place. Don’t forget to bring a cheque for tool storage, drayage, and maintenance we just performed in a last ditched effort to save your clapped out dies.
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We built a specialised machine for an OEM supplier to build a specific vehicle cooling system component - the machine was a variation of a somewhat-standard design, but of course it has to be tailored because one vehicle has a part 200mm long and another 250mm and another 220mm and another has the inlet and outlet turned 90 degrees and another has a straight inlet but the outlet turned 65 degrees and another has inlet and outlet parallel but the outlet flared to a larger diameter to connect to a different diameter hose ... you get the idea.

Anyhow, this machine got built, commissioned at our facility, shipped to our customer (who was the supplier of this component to the vehicle manufacturer), and then the vehicle manufacturer determined at the last minute that they didn't need this component. For us, it was great. We built the equipment, so we got paid for it, but there were no warranty claims, no discoveries that something was a smidge out of tolerance during PPAP, no headaches, no hassles. But, the piece of equipment still belonged to the vehicle manufacturer, and they had no use for it, so there it sat in the plant, disused.

Months later, on a service call, I walked past that machine, and practically every piece that could have served some purpose to fix a breakdown on one of the other similar machines, or used to fix something else on anyone else's machine in the plant that happened to be similar, was gone. It was nearly stripped down to the core. Valve banks ... buttons on the control panel ... cylinders ... hydraulic hoses ... gone!

"not our problem" ...

Scuba Steve said:
The even stranger thing is they just bought it a couple of months ago. I really would like to know why they kept spending even though they had to know they were in trouble. Same thing with the MV purchase is probably a complete loss. They didn't have to buy MV but pushed to do it just to go bankrupt.
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Absolute, total, complete, management incompetence.
 
Mad Mike said:
That’s a tough grind. If you came to our shop and asked for tooling from a company that stiffed us, it might take a long time for us to locate the stuff… and you better have all the paperwork and court orders in place. Don’t forget to bring a cheque for tool storage, drayage, and maintenance we just performed in a last ditched effort to save your clapped out dies.
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We built a large blade mold (120' long) out of sections. I had them all set up and confirmed with a laser and templates. Customer had sent folks down to confirm tooling was good.
They decide they don't want us to make the parts and will take the tooling back to their facility, but they hadn't signed off on the tooling.
Their team arrives in a van from Quebec to disassemble the sections.
"Hello XX your guys can sit in the van all day I don't care. Nobody enters the shop until I have written approval for the tooling"
"But that guy is busy with XYZ"
"No problem I'm not paying the guys in the van"
 
I was scratching head for a while over the last 18 months as I watched the number of expensive events KTM was hosting around the world...spending Red Bull level dollars without having the depth of earnings a sugar water vendor had to rely on. :unsure:
How many KTMs would they have to sell in little New Zealand for instance to support the events there? The events in the Nordic nations and it seemed a constant parade.....but the outflow was at a scale I couldn't imagine til I saw the numbers..
what caused KTM’s downfall was its debt rose from 255 million to 1.7 billion euros between 2023 and the end of October 2024.
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And no Daddy Warbucks in the shadows....
Brian P: I really would like to know why they kept spending even though they had to know they were in trouble.
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exactly....desperation? someone's ego trip? management being lied to?? :unsure:
 
Relax said:
If any auto manufacturer were to purchase KTM, my money would be on either BMW or VW/Audi.
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BMW already builds motorcycles, but doesn't have a dirt-bike lineup. I can see BMW considering almost everything in the street-bike lineup to be a competitor to what they already build, thus redundant (even if it really isn't). One interesting aspect of this, is that it would buy BMW into MotoGP.

VW/Audi same situation through Ducati, except in this case, the MotoGP situation would be ... uninteresting.
 
Brian P said:
BMW already builds motorcycles, but doesn't have a dirt-bike lineup. I can see BMW considering almost everything in the street-bike lineup to be a competitor to what they already build, thus redundant (even if it really isn't). One interesting aspect of this, is that it would buy BMW into MotoGP.

VW/Audi same situation through Ducati, except in this case, the MotoGP situation would be ... uninteresting.
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KTM may decide to break apart its lineup. Though, BMW did own Husqvarna briefly, between 2007-2013, before they sold it off to its current owners, Pierer Mobility.

On paper, there was good synergy, because although BMW did have a well-rounded portfolio of Adventure motorcycles, they really didn't have anything in the real dirtbike space. They used one of Husky's existing 4-stroke thumpers as the basis of the G450X, which I believe is BMW's first and last real dirtbike.

2008-bmw-g-450-x_1600x0w.jpg


The specs on this thing are totally unconventional (check out where the front sprocket and the swingarm pivot are), but I don't think it's what led to its poor sales and BMW subsequently selling Husky 5 years later. I remember looking to buy a G450X when it first came out, and the sales guy asking me if I've ever owned a dirtbike before. He said this wouldn't be a good candidate for first time owners. And also, the dirtbike maintenance schedule (measured in hours, not kms) made it a tough sell compared to other BMW motorcycles with service intervals every 10,000 kms.

I eventually bought a KTM 250 XC-W instead.

At the time, the customer overlap between BMW street/ADV riders and dirtbikes were quite slim. Today, who knows? Maybe BMW were 20 years too early with their acquisition?
 
Those’re are no shortages of companies that would be a fit with KTM.

Harley Davidson is probably the best fit. Virtually no crossover in product, best parts & distribution network in North America, KTM brings same for Europe. But Harley has historically failed at ventures like this - they lack the attitude, expertise and leadership to integrate acquisitions.

I think the big problem for KTM is they are a dogs breakfast as a company. Suitors and investors see too much debt and too structurally and operationally messy to be worth saving.

IMHO, the only vehicle company that is able to absorb a steamer like KTM is Stellantis. They have a long history of sorting out really messy automotive acquisitions, and they have a unique advantage being Italian - govt subsidies and regulations make Italian auto companies hard to kill.

Imagine getting a free 300 with your next RAM pickup?
 
Brian P said:
Aye but Stellantis has its own set of nightmares to deal with already!
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Yes, but they’re Italian - they prefer things that way.
 
Mad Mike said:
Those’re are no shortages of companies that would be a fit with KTM.

Harley Davidson is probably the best fit. Virtually no crossover in product, best parts & distribution network in North America, KTM brings same for Europe. But Harley has historically failed at ventures like this - they lack the attitude, expertise and leadership to integrate acquisitions.

I think the big problem for KTM is they are a dogs breakfast as a company. Suitors and investors see too much debt and too structurally and operationally messy to be worth saving.

IMHO, the only vehicle company that is able to absorb a steamer like KTM is Stellantis. They have a long history of sorting out really messy automotive acquisitions, and they have a unique advantage being Italian - govt subsidies and regulations make Italian auto companies hard to kill.

Imagine getting a free 300 with your next RAM pickup?
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Harley is a terrible match they kill anything the touch Buell MV the electric motocross company they bought.

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