Cycle News

Cycle News 2019 Issue 31 August 6

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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IN THE WIND P42 GasGas Rumors Addressed G asGas North America Operations Manager Mark Berg's says he wants to clear up some false rumors that he's been hear- ing, regarding the status of GasGas and U.S. distribu- tor, GasGas North America. Some of these rumors, he says, are saying the com- pany is up for sale or is in receivership or bankruptcy. Berg says, not true. "We're hearing all sorts of questions and stories, like our South Dakota offices are closed, and all the parts have been shipped back, but that's not the case at all," said Berg. "We work with the factory on a weekly basis, moving forward in 2020 with bike sales, and with our programs, and sup- port. My staff is still there at the offices; it's normal business for us still. We're constantly getting parts in and back out to our deal- ers and working on programs for 2020. "In our warehouse, we have in stock well over $500,000 of parts for just trials and enduro, plus aftermarket parts, so we have a lot of parts going all the way back to 1996. With the fire that they had last year at the factory, they did have some struggles in transitions to a new warehouse and replenishing those stocks. And we did run into some issues with plastics and ev- erything else that was obviously destroyed in the fire. But things are getting better back at the factory as far as getting caught up on back-orders. Our fulfillment rates are getting up there. Not the level that we want them to be, but they're getting better. So, the bottom line is, we are doing well, and it's business as usual at GasGas North America." Berg added, "When the Con- treras family and the Torrot Group bought GasGas in 2016, they didn't use their own money. They used a company called Black Toro Capital as its investment company. Throughout all this, GasGas had a very successful 2017 with the new 2018 models in that time frame. They did $40 million in sales that year, and $30 million of it was GasGas sales. Only 10 of it was Torrot sales. But Torrot decided to take that cash and invest more into elec- tric, more into green energy, and they kind of left GasGas holding the bag for 2019 R&D and 2020 R&D. That's where the Black Toro Capital said enough is enough. GasGas is the company that is profitable. GasGas has a viable future. We're going to take con- trol of that. That's where they're at right now, working on splitting up the two companies and we are just working on aftersales support and keeping our dealers plus consumers in the loop of what is truly going on." CN Despite the rumors, GasGas North America says it's in good shape.

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