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After a 15 percent drop in sales, Mavic's parent company says it's considering selling off the brand.
Mavic's parent company is exploring selling off the bike component brand as it struggles with manufacturing capacity and a 15 percent sales decline in the first half of this year.
Amer Sports, which also owns the sports brands Salomon, Wilson, Precor, Atomic, Suunto, and Arc'teryx, said this week it is looking at ways to refocus its attention, and that may include selling off the wheel and component maker.
"Amer Sports is considering strategic alternatives to focus its business portfolio more towards categories where it believes it has the best long-term opportunities and where the best group-wide synergies can be achieved," Amer said in a company statement released Sept. 1.
"Consistent with this strategy, Amer Sports is currently exploring alternatives in respect of its cycling business Mavic. Among other alternatives, this strategic review may result in a divestiture of this asset," it continued. The statement did not mention the possibility of selling off any of its other brands.
In a quarterly statement released last month, Amer said Mavic sales had fallen from 59.4 million euros in the first half of 2008 to 51.8 million euros this year. The company said Mavic sales had started to stabilize after "a very low start for the year."
The company blamed a lack of manufacturing capacity for the decline. It also noted that the recall of its R-SYS wheel was almost complete and that "customer feedback on the execution of the recall has been positive."
In an August 6 conference called with investors, Amer Sports CEO Roger Talermo said, "Cycling has now stabilized its delivery situation. It started very low especially on the OEM side. Now it's actually going pretty stable compared to how the year began."
The August statement warned Amer Sport investors that company-wide 2009 earnings would be below the prior year's. In the Sept. 1 statement, the company said earlier earmings estimates were too optimistic.
Mavic contributed about 9 percent of the company's first-half-year revenues of 285 million euros.
