Cycle News

Cycle News 2019 Issue 42 October 22

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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KTM PRESIDENT/CEO STEFAN PIERER: PART 2 P124 Interview it appears it will. On our two- strokes, we have that specific fuel injection which works for Euro 4, but for Euro 5, I think it's going to be difficult, so two-strokes are heading towards closed-course use only, not on the public high- way. It seems Husqvarna has an exciting future. Where do you see it going? We have to overtake Triumph and Ducati to become number three in Europe, that's the short term goal! BMW is number two, and it's my most liked competitor, plus I appreciate that we got the chance from BMW to take over Husqvarna—I'll never forget that. I don't perceive them as a real competitor, more an ally in fight- ing the Japanese. BMW and KTM are the remaining serious play- ers in Europe, and that's a little bit sad because of all the others we lost. Even MV Agusta went to the Russians—though that young Russian owner is a nice guy, and intelligent, too. I enjoyed meeting him once—he's very clever. I was positively surprised. What are your projections for KTM in the next 10 years? Do you want to bring it to the market via an IPO, or do you want to keep the company private? I'm already publically listed in Switzerland. I moved from Vi- enna to Switzerland two years ago, which was a very good decision because the Zurich stock exchange is the second largest in Europe. It has huge liquidity—there's so much money there, and you can find serious long-term investors there. So 38% of KTM equity is in the market, and 62% is still owned by my family compa- ny. So that's fine, and I think the combination of having a listing with a clear industrial lead is always a good one. KTM is still growing substantially. How many people do you now have working for you altogether? Locally we have 3625 people in and around Mattig- hofen, and in total something like 4300 worldwide. With your forthcoming electro-mobility products, will this have to increase? Yes, but the production will take place in India, so that's a big help for us, because one of the bottlenecks here in Central Europe is recruiting workers. Be- cause the demographic develop- ment in Europe sees fewer young people and I would say half of them have the wrong education. What we need are digitalization technicians, engineers, labora- tory workers and suchlike, and they're really rare, so it's not easy to recruit. And we have almost 150 blue-collar lease workers from places like Ukraine, Moldova and so on. Because we simply KTM is intent on becoming the number-three manufacturer in the global sports motorcycle market by 2020. It has already overtaken Suzuki and Harley-Davidson. Kawasaki is next on its hit list.

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