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Cycle News 2013 Issue 14 April 9

Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles

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VOL. 50 ISSUE 14 APRIL 9, 2013 The man behind the brand: KTM's Stefan Pierer. P67 Winning! Part I Stefan Pierer is arguably the most powerful man in European motorcycling BY ALAN CATHCART PHOTOGRAPHY BY KTM AG K TM President/CEO Stefan Pierer is the most powerful man in European motorcycling – a fact cemented by BMW Motorrad's shock sale of Husqvarna to Pierer Industrie AG, his personal holding company. But even before Europe's two largest motorcycle manufacturers ended up doing business with each other over the Germanowned, Italian-based, Swedish-born off-road brand, each had posted record production and sales records while competing for the title of top dog in the European motorcycle industry. The result has been that the crown of Europe's largest motorcycle brand in terms of unit sales now belongs KTM and not BMW, handing that distinction to the Austrian company in which Bajaj Auto, India's second largest manufacturer, holds a 47 percent slice of the equity. This came in a year when KTM's success on the racetrack was never greater, with Sandro Cortese defeating the might of Honda to win the inaugural Moto3 road racing World Championship – KTM's first on tarmac – while Toni Cairoli (MX1) and Jeffrey Herlings (MX2), completed a clean sweep of the Motocross World titles for the Austrian manufacturer. This was matched by a similar dominance of the World Enduro Championship via Antoine Meo and Christophe Nambotin, with Pierre-Alexandre Renet completing KTM's clean sweep of the off-road titles by winning the Enduro2 crown on a Husaberg made in the Austrian firm's Mattighofen factory. And let's not forget Ryan Dungey's AMA National Motocross Championship – a first for the brand. The chance to meet Pierer in his Mattighofen office for the first one-onone interview he'd given since acquiring Husqvarna, gave the background behind this roll call of success, and his plans to build on it for the future.. KTM enjoyed a spectacularly successful 2012. You won every World Championship you contested, you sold over 100,000 units for the first time, and now you're number one among European manufacturers in

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