Bicycle maker Accell in talks with Pon Holdings after €845m bid
Combination would bring together Raleigh and Gazelle brands
Accell Group is in talks with Dutch rival Pon Holdings to create one of the world’s largest bicycle makers, with a dominant position in the fast-growing electric bike market.
Shares in Accell rose almost 20 per cent after the Amsterdam-listed company confirmed it had received a €845m takeover bid from Pon, a family-owned Dutch group with interests across the transportation sector.
The non-binding offer of €32.72 a share represents a 23 per cent premium to Accell’s closing price on April 10.
Pon said a combination with Accell would “result in the world’s leading global bicycle company, with headquarters in the Netherlands and with sufficient scale to be the long-term winner in the industry”.
Accell is already Europe’s largest bicycle company by turnover, selling about 1.5m bikes each year. Pon expects to sell 800,000 bicycles in 2017, and their combined sales would be worth about €1.7bn annually.
The Netherlands has the highest penetration of bicycle ownership in the world, and the combined company would have a share of as much as 50 per cent of the Dutch market, according to analysts
However, overall bicycle sales by volume in the Netherlands and Germany have been static for years. Revenues have been rising on the back of double-digit growth in electric bikes, alongside improvements in motor and battery technology.
Frank Claassen, analyst with Belgian broker Degroof Petercam, said the combined company would be well positioned to exploit the expected growth in e-bikes in other European markets. He said it would be “a clear market leader” in Netherlands and Germany and this could raise some antitrust hurdles, “but probably these are not high enough to prevent Pon from making this deal”.
Mr Claassen described the Pon offer for Accell as “an initial bid and we see room for a few euros per share more”.
Taiwan’s listed bicycle manufacturers such as Giant, the world largest bicycle company by volume producing about 6m bikes a year, trade at higher multiples.
Accell said on Tuesday it had made its announcement “in anticipation of market rumours” after reports in the Dutch daily de Telegraaf.
Pon made an initial approach on March 17, five weeks after Accell revealed it was searching for a successor to René Takens, who is stepping down as chairman and chief executive after 15 years at the helm.
Accell’s brands include Haibike in Germany and Batavus in the Netherlands. It also owns UK and US rights to Raleigh, the famous UK brand which in the 1980s accounted for three of every four bicycles sold in the UK.
Pon has been a consolidator in the bicycle industry in recent years. In 2011 it bought Gazelle, the second-largest producer in the Netherlands. In the same year it acquired a majority stake in Derby cycles, Germany’s leading bicycle manufacturer and Europe’s largest e-bike company. Accell owned 20 per cent of Derby at the time but chose not to make a counter offer.
In January this year Pon bought the e-bike company Faraday Bicycles in the US. Pon also owns Cervélo, a Canadian maker of high performance track bikes.
Pon started life as an importer of VW cars. Indeed, its founder Ben Pon is credited with the original design of the famous “split-screen” VW transporter — still one of the most popular campervans on the road.