McLaren Applied's Lavoie buys bankrupt Dutch e-bike maker VanMoof
By Nick Carey and Toby Sterling
LONDON/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) — Lavoie, the electric scooter unit of Formula One engineering and technology firm McLaren Applied, said on Thursday it has agreed to buy bankrupt premium Dutch e-bike maker VanMoof and will invest to stabilize and expand its business.
Lavoid and McLaren Applied did not disclose terms for the purchase, but McLaren Applied Chairman Nick Fry told Reuters that including the capital needed to stabilize VanMoof there would be an investment of «tens of millions» of pounds «in the short term.»
«This is a huge opportunity for us as this (VanMoof) is a company with a brilliant product,» Fry said. «But this is not going to be a walk in the park, this also is a company that got itself into a difficult financial situation.»
Fry said McLaren Applied — bought from McLaren Group by private equity firm Greybull Capital in 2021 — would retain VanMoof's departmental managers and would «engage and retain or rehire some of the great people» the Dutch e-bike maker employed.
But he said there will be some redundancies and under new management VanMoof will abandon its in-house retail store model, instead using third-party retailers to sell and service bikes, opening up new markets around the world for potential buyers.
VanMoof was declared bankrupt on July 18. It sold around 200,000 electric bikes for more than 2,000 euros ($2,176) each before going bankrupt, partly due to high maintenance costs.
The company had raised more than $180 million from investors including private equity firm Hillhouse and Silicon Valley venture capital fund Norwest Venture Partners.
Other suitors for VanMoof had included Nasdaq-listed Micromobility.com.
VanMoof had also struggled with quality problems,
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