First integration between Catalan motorcycle manufacturers. Gas Gas and Ossa Factory have reached a pre-agreement to merge and create the world’s leading trial company. Sources familiar with the negotiations explained yesterday that both companies have agreed to integrate after Ossa had been looking for months for a new investor to give the company financial muscle.
[UPDATED NEWS 23/01/14 – MERGER AGREEMENT BETWEEN GAS GAS AND OSSA]
The first step in the integration process took place last March, when Gas Gas, Rieju and Ossa sealed an alliance to manufacture a new engine model compatible with trial and enduro scooters and motorcycles. Now, two of these three companies have decided to go one step further and become a group with the capacity to manufacture about 11,000 motorcycles a year and combined sales that will be close to 50 million.
The sources consulted explained that the agreement is in line with
“the synergies already initiated to manufacture a new engine and within a project to enhance the value of the Catalan motorcycle sector that is being promoted by the General Directorate of Industry of the Generalitat”.
“In recent months, there have been a series of relocations that have left the Catalan two-wheeled fabric very battered; We want to resurrect it and the protagonists must be the Catalan manufacturers,” the
same sources added.
Share exchange
For now, the details of the integration have not been finalized, which will probably involve Ossa’s current shareholders taking a minority stake in Gas Gas. 73% of the latter company is currently in the hands of Vector Capital, the venture capital company of Caixa Penedès. Gas Gas had a turnover of €39.5 million in its last fiscal year, which ended in July 2011. It achieved an operating profit of €1.1 million. Gas Gas controls 40% of the global trial bike market, with production of around 5,000 units last year. It also manufactured some 4,000 enduro motorcycles.
For its part, Ossa has a workforce of 40 workers and manufactured 1,250 units last year, with sales of five million euros. For months, the company has been looking for a new investor to provide liquidity to the business, after its main capitalist partner, the businessman J.C., was forced to leave the company after the insolvency of Info-Cobro, a firm specialized in going to judicial auctions of which he was the sole administrator and which filed for insolvency proceedings in Girona with liabilities of more than 30 million euros. The main shareholders of Ossa, a historic trial brand from the seventies that was recovered in 2008, are Joan Gurt, Alexandre Plaza and Joan Roma.
The industrial project of the company resulting from the merger is also about to be outlined. Gas Gas would have the necessary production capacity to take on Ossa’s workload at its facilities in Salt (Gironès), but a new location could also be sought. For months, the Generalitat has been looking for a buyer for the Derbi plant in Martorelles (Vallès Oriental), although there is already one interested party: the Swiss holding company Giba Jacaré.
“There are no official talks along these lines, all options are open,”
the same sources said.
Source: Expansión / Text:
Cristina Fontgivell
