VOLUME 57 ISSUE 9 MARCH 3, 2020 P97
in consolidating the global rights to the
previously diffused Norton trademark,
which had been regionally owned by such
diverse entities as a Canadian entrepre-
neur with links to organized crime (who
later served jail time for fraud), a Chinese
trademark troll, and Norton's German dis-
tributor Joe Seifert, who'd been farsighted
enough to register the company name in
most European countries, to safeguard it.
In 2006 Curme reached an agreement
with MV Agusta's then-owner Claudio
Castiglioni for him to acquire the Norton
name as a volume production twin-cylinder
brand to generate profits and thus cashflow
alongside the low volume higher-cost MV
Agusta range of fours (and later triples).
But this sale was aborted by the refusal
(Above) Factory workers hard at work in 2016. At this stage, things were looking good for Norton.
(Left) The author chatting with Garner at the Donington Park facility.
and ongoing uncertainties over Brexit affecting
many things, like tariffs, exports and availability of
funding."
Stuart Garner is understood to have personally
owned 86 percent of Norton Motorcycles' equity,
with the balance held by three longtime friends of
his, each with a small single-digit percentage
shareholding.
Besides Norton, two other Garner companies
have also entered administration. One is Doning-
ton Hall Estates, owner of the 229-year-old stately
home adjacent to the Donington Park former Mo-
toGP/F1 racetrack, in which Garner has been living,
the other the nearby 42-bedroom Priest House
Hotel, set in a converted Norman-era mill tower and
adjoining 17th-century cottages.
The 80-acre Donington Hall estate houses the
55,000 sqft Norton factory and recently built
12,000 sqft of extra covered space added to it to
accommodate volume production of the range of
newly launched 650cc Atlas twins, which has not
yet been fitted out with machinery. The Norton
workforce formerly numbered around 100 people,
but this headcount was substantially reduced in
recent months, as the cashflow problems Norton is
suffering from began to take effect.
Stuart Garner, 50, is the man who in October
2008 bet big on being able to revive Norton,
when he acquired the rights to the historic Brit-
ish marque from its previous American owner,
Boston, Massachusetts investment banker Oliver
Curme. This came after Curme had succeeded
